LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



Chap. ... Copyright No. 

Shelt_L..C-41 3 

-;Glf 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS 

TO PARENTS 
ON THE BRINGING UP OF CHILDREN. 



By the same Author. 



POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS 
ON MARRIAGE. 

BY 

Very Rev. FerreolGirardey, CSS. R. 
32010, paper, 25 cts. ; . . per ioo, $12.50 

" Cloth, 35 " . . " " 2I.OO 

u The best things on the married state 
are to be found in this little book. . . . 
The book is brimful of practical matter." 
—Irish Ecclesiastical Record. 



Popular Instructions 
to Parents 

ON THE 

Bringing Up of Children. 



Very Rev. FERREOL GIRARDEY, C.SS.R., 
Provincial of the St. Louis Province, 



OX oH - 0, ' 

NEW YORK, CINCINNATI, CHICAGO : 

Benziger Brothers, 

Printers to the Holy Apostolic See, 
1897 



U " 



THOMAS L. KINKEAD, 

Censor Librorunt. 



imprimatur* 

4* MICHAEL AUGUSTINE, 

Archbishop of New York. 

New York, December 29, 1896. 



COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY BEKZIGER BROTHERS. 



. 






PREFACE. 

hthe future welfare of both Church 
and state depends chiefly on 
the manner in which the rising 
generation is brought up, for if all 
parents were to give their children 
a good religious training, the future 
prosperity of both Church and 
state would be assured, because a 
good religious training will make 
children good Christians, and, as 
experience proves, good Christians 
are always good citizens. In our 
" Popular Instructions on Mar- 
riage " we have briefly outlined the 
duties of parents in the bringing 
up of their children. In this little 
work we enter more fully into de- 

3 



4 PREFACE. 

tails, and clearly point out, almost 
step by step, the manner in which 
Christian parents should bring up 
their children from birth to the 
time when they embrace that state 
of life for which God has des- 
tined them. May this little book 
prove useful in directing and assist- 
ing parents in the proper perform- 
ance of the noble but difficult task 
of making their children exemplary 
Christians and virtuous citizens! 



CONTEXTS. 

PAGE 

Preface, 3 

Chapter I. The Parental Rights 

and Obligations, 7 

Chapter II. The Two Classes of 

Parental Duties, .... 15 

Chapter III. Faith and Fear of 

God 21 

Chapter IV. Religious Training 

at Home, * . 28 

Chapter V. Religious Training 

at Home {continued) 35 

Chapter VI. What the Children 

should be Taught to Avoid, 45 

Chapter VII. Devotions which 
the Parents should Teach 
their Children, 61 

Chapter VIII. Submission to Au- 
thority, 77 

Chapter IX. Purity, . ... 86 
5 



6 CONTENTS. 

PAGH 

Chapter X. The Schooling of 

the Children, 93 

Chapter XL The Schooling of 

the Children (continued), . . 100 
Chapter XII. Prudence and 

Tact, 113 

Chapter XIII. Watchfulness, . 124 
Chapter XIV. Correction, . . 130 
Chapter XV. Good Example, . 137 
Chapter XVI. Vocation, . . . 142 
Chapter XVII. Preparation for 

Marriage, 151 

Chapter XVIII. Marriage, . . 159 
Various Prayers for the Use of 

Parents 166 

Appendix. Frederick II. of Prus- 
sia and a Christian System 
of Education, 193 



POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO 

PARENTS ON THE BRINGING 

UP OF CHILDREN. 



CHAPTER L 

Ube parental tRigbts an& ©blfgatfons. 

taear Christian parents, your re- 
sponsibility as parents is in- 
deed great. As individuals, you 
are answerable for your own souls ; 
but as parents, you shall be required 
to give the Sovereign Judge a strict 
account of the souls of your chil- 
dren. It is your sacred duty so tc 
train your children that they may 
become not merely good citizens 
and useful members of society, but 
more especially faithful members 



8 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

of Christ's body on earth, viz., the 
holy Catholic Church, in order 
that after this life they may be 
saints in God's heavenly kingdom. 
If they become good practical 
Christians, they will most certainly 
prove useful to society, and be law- 
abiding and patriotic citizens. 

Comparatively few parents thor- 
oughly appreciate the full extent of 
their responsibility. Were young 
men and young women, before mar- 
riage, fully to realize the extent of 
the obligations incumbent on par- 
ents, many would shrink from en- 
tering a state so encumbered with 
duties and crosses. 

In the bringing up of children 
both the father and mother should 
act in concert. If you neglect your 
parental duties in whole or in part, 
or if in their discharge you act sep- 



PARENTAL RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS. 9 

arately from . or in opposition • to 
each other, the tree of your mar- 
riage will produce only thorns and 
thistles, and your children will be 
neither good Christians nor useful 
citizens, and, far from becoming 
the prop and consolation of your 
old age, they will bring down yqur 
gray hair with sorrow to the tomb. 
You ought to be firmly persuaded 
of the great truth, that your chil- 
dren belong, in the first place, not 
to yourselves, but to God. It is 
He who gives them to you and 
takes them back when He pleases. 
God only lends your children to 
you : He intrusts them to you as 
so many precious talents, for which 
you are strictly accountable to His 
infinite justice. In Europe espe- 
cially, infidels and freemasons, ma- 
liciously subverting the order of 



IO POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

nature established by the Creator, 
seek to concentrate all rights and 
powers in what they are pleased to 
call " the state." They most er- 
roneously assert that the child be- 
longs, not to his parents, but to the 
state ; and, out of hatred of the 
Christian religion, they dare to 
claim for the state the exclusive 
right of educating the children in 
state or public schools. If, as they 
say, the child belongs to the state, 
the child's parents, being them- 
selves the children of their own 
parents, must likewise be the prop- 
erty of the state ; and therefore we 
no longer have any freemen, but 
all men are the chattels or the 
slaves of the state ! And as in 
some countries the masons and in- 
fidels claim to be the state, it would 
seem that they modestly (?) claim 



PARENTAL RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS. II 

to own and dispose of their feliow- 
men just as they please. 

If, according to the masonic doc- 
trine, both the child and his par- 
ents belong to the state, the state 
is obliged, not merely to educate 
the children, but also to feed, 
clothe, lodge, and provide with the 
comforts of life both the children 
and their parents— just as the state 
is now doing in its institutions for 
paupers and criminals ! Such a 
doctrine, however, is evidently false 
and absurd, and utterly subversive 
of the order of nature. 

Let us never lose sight of the 
grand fact that the state is com- 
posed, not of single individuals, but 
of' families. Without families, that 
is, with individuals only, the state 
could not be perpetuated, but would 
soon become extinct. To endure, 



12 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

the state must be composed of fami- 
lies, i.e., of the parents and their 
children. Hence the unit of soci- 
ety or the state is the family, and 
not the isolated individual, just as 
the individual is the unit of the 
family. From this it follows that 
the family as an institution ante- 
dates the state, for, as everybody 
knows, every compound is posterior 
to its components* This being the 
case, the natural and logical con- 
clusion is that the family has natu- 
ral 'and essential rights which the 
state is bound to respect and even 
to protect ; for these rights are in- 
alienable, and independent of the 
state, because they are, as we have 
seen, prior to the state. Among 
these natural and essential rights of 
the family are the indissoluble union 
of husband and wife in matrimony, 



PARENTAL RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS. 13 

and the parental rights over the 
children. 

The parental rights are derived 
from God Himself, the Author of 
nature and the Institutor of matri- 
mony and the family. These rights, 
being only delegated by Him to the 
parents, are not unlimited and arbi- 
trary ; but they are defined, and ac- 
companied by certain indispensable 
obligations. When the parents ut- 
terly neglect these sacred obliga- 
tions, or are incompetent, or physi- 
cally unable to discharge them prop- 
erly, the state and other lawful 
authorities may, each within its 
own respective sphere, step in to as- 
sume control of the children. The 
state may enact just and equitable 
laws concerning marriage and edu- 
cation, but only in so far as these 
entail civil rights or effects ; but 



14 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

said laws must in no wise usurp 
or antagonize the natural rights of 
the family or of the parents. The 
laws which in any way encroach 
on these essential and inalienable 
rights are unlawful, unjust, tyran- 
nical, and not at all binding ; and no 
one can, without gross and unpar- 
donable injustice, be compelled to 
observe them or to submit to them. 



CHAPTER II. 
Ube Uwo Classes of parental Duties. 

hhhe state, we have seen, is com- 
posed of families. Every fam- 
ily has a head — the father. The 
mother is the natural companion 
and helpmate of the father, and 
shares his authority and duties. The 
parental authority is derived, as we 
have seen, not from the state, but 
from God Himself. Parents are, 
then, independent of the state in 
their natural rights over their chil- 
dren. 

Your parental authority, dear 
parents, imposes on you two classes 
of duties towards your childreia. 
One class of duties regards the 
bodies and the temporal welfare of 



l6 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

your children ; the other concerns 
their spiritual and eternal welfare. 
These latter duties, being by far the 
most important, necessarily hold the 
first place ; and the former obtain 
only a secondary importance, and 
must always remain subordinate to 
the latter. . 

Your first duty towards the bod- 
ies and the temporal welfare of 
your children is to protect and pre- 
serve their life. To seek to limit 
the number of your children by 
certain practices now in vogue is a 
most heinous crime. Read the 
thirty-eighth chapter of Genesis, 
and you will see how the divine 
vengeance overtook Onan for doing 
a " detestable thing/' Onan's con- 
duct was bad enough, but it did not 
amount to the murder of the inno- 
cents — a crime which threatens to 



TWO CLASSES OF PARENTAL DUTIES. 1 7 

become as common among men 
pretending to be enlightened Chris- 
tians as it was among the immoral 
pagans of old. The flames of hell 
cannot burn too fiercely for those 
Christians who commit such enor- 
mous crimes in order to indulge 
their animal passions without re- 
straint and escape the burden of 
parentage. Such persons are worse 
than brutes. The divine vengeance 
will not fail, sooner or later, to 
overtake them. 

Next to life, you owe your chil- 
dren necessary food, clothing, and 
shelter, according to your means. 
You should be ready to endure 
sufferings and ' privations your- 
selves rather than allow your little 
ones to be a prey to the pangs of 
hunger or the inclemencies of the 
weather. The slothful, drunken, 



1 8 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

gambling, and dissipated parent who 
neglects to provide his children with 
the necessaries of life, or who de- 
serts them, is an inhuman wretch, 
deserving of the execration of man- 
kind and of the terrible justice of 
an avenging God. 

You ought also to care for both 
the cleanliness and health of your 
children. When these are sick, both 
of you, that is, both the father and 
mother, should tenderly nurse them, 
sparing no labor, fatigue, or expense 
for their alleviation and restoration 
to health. 

It behooves you not to lose sight 
of the great truth that man's first 
duty in this life is to serve God, and 
that he cannot attain his final end, 
that is, perfect and endless happi- 
ness, unless he faithfully serve God. 
To serve God means to submit our 



TWO CLASSES OF PARENTAL DUTIES, ig 

whole being to Him and to His holy 
law, to submit to Him our body and 
its senses, our soul and its facul- 
ties ; in a word, to regulate all our 
thoughts, words, and actions in ac- 
cordance with His commandments. 
If we wilfully break a single divine 
commandment in some important 
point, although we may faithfully 
keep the others, we forfeit our sal- 
vation, according to the saying of 
St. James. This may be made clear 
by the following illustration: A man 
may not meet death by drowning, 
by disease, by a fall or some other 
accident, or by hanging himself, cut- 
ting his throat, or blowing out his 
brains ; yet if he refuses all nourish- 
ment, or takes a sufficient quantity 
of poison, he will surely die. In like 
manner, a man may not deserve 
hell for cursing, for perjury, for 



20 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

theft, for adultery, or for drunken- 
ness, if he refrain from these vices; 
nevertheless, if he fail to perform 
his religious duties or to discharge 
the obligations of his state of life, 
he is most assuredly deserving of 
eternal reprobation. 



CHAPTER III. 
jfaitb ant> tbe Jfear of <3oo. 

^itithout the knowledge and 
practice of faith there can be 
no true wisdom. Genuine practical 
wisdom has its source in the fear 
of the Lord, for the royal prophet 
says, " The beginning of wisdom is 
the fear of the Lord •' (Ps. ex, 
10). But the fear of the Lord can 
be found only in the knowledge and 
practice of the true faith. 

The advocates of the public- 
school system of education — among 
whom are found not a few Catholics 
who take this position because they 
ignore their holy religion or desire 
to please the world — maintain that 
ignorance is the cause of crime. If 



22 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

they meant ignorance of the true 
religion, we might let their assertion 
pass ; but the ignorance they mean 
is illiteracy, or ignorance of secular 
and profane sciences. Their asser- 
tion is, however, utterly false, as has 
been repeatedly proved by the Cath- 
olic press throughout the land. It 
is not secular ignorance that is the 
cause of crime, but it is godless- 
ness, that is, the lack of the true 
knowledge and fear of God. The 
fear of God is alone, at all times, 
capable of curbing and restraining 
man's violent passions. A sad ex- 
perience proves that where this 
wholesome fear is wanting, crime 
increases at a fearful rate. Has the 
universal diffusion of secular educa- 
tion in this country brought about 
the diminution of crime ? No, not 
at all ; read the daily papers, the 



FAITH AND THE FEAR OF GOD. 23 

proceedings of the courts, and you 
will be shocked at the daily increase 
of crime, both in frequency and 
malice, not only among the men, 
but even among the women ; not 
only among the illiterate, but more 
especially among what are termed 
the "educated classes." Injustice, 
adultery, seduction, divorce, murder, 
and suicide are becoming so com- 
mon, that one might suppose that 
the country is fast relapsing into 
the corruptions and abominations 
of ancient paganism. All this is 
but the natural result of the present 
godless system of education that 
obtains among almost all our peo- 
ple, except the Catholics who are 
devoted to their holy religion. 

An illiterate godless person is bad 
enough ; but an educated godless 
person is incomparably the more to 



24 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

be dreaded, because his superior 
knowledge furnishes him with supe- 
rior means and numberless expe- 
dients to devise and execute, in a 
wholesale manner, deeds of dark- 
ness, and at the same time to evade 
the clutches of human justice, and 
even to continue to move in respec- 
table society ! An illiterate godless 
person may by violent means steal 
small sums of money, but it takes 
the smart, educated godless person, 
in places of trust, power, and influ- 
ence, to steal millions by apparently 
lawful means, and to commit other 
crimes of rare malice and refine- 
ment, and to be able at the same 
time, if not to secure absolute im- 
munity, at least to defeat, in a great 
measure, the ends of justice. The 
greater scourge and curse of society 
is not the godless ignoramus, but the 



FAITH AND THE FEAR OF GOD. 2$ 

godless refined and educated gentle- 
man ! Godlessness, however, pro- 
ceeds from the want of a lively faith 
and a lack of the fear of God. We 
are therefore justified in asserting 
that the principal source of crime is 
religious ignorance and neglect. 

Your first duty, then, as parents, 
is to bring up your children in god- 
liness, that is, in the knowledge and 
fear of God. To discharge this 
sacred and indispensable duty, it 
behooves you to impart to your 
children a good and sound religious 
education both in theory and in 
practice. 

You should have your children 
baptized as soon as possible, that 
is, within a week after their birth; 
in certain dangerous climates it is 
the rule to have them baptized 
within a month. It is very sinful to 



26 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

defer their baptism for a longer 
period of time than the afore- 
mentioned. You should prefer the 
services of a good, conscientious 
Catholic physician, and of a good, 
well-instructed Catholic midwife, 
so that in case of danger private 
baptism may be duly administered 
to your little ones. You should, 
moreover, bear in mind that none 
but good, practical Catholics may 
stand as godparents to your children 
at baptism. 

It is your sacred duty to begin to 
teach your children the science of 
salvation from their earliest infancy. 
Teach them, first of all, to lisp the 
holy names of Jesus and Mary; and, 
as soon as they begin to learn to 
speak, gradually teach them how to 
make the sign of the cross, and to 
recite the "Our Father," the "Hail 



FAITH AND THE FEAR OF GOD 27 

Mary," the Creed, the acts of faith, 
hope, charity, and contrition. Ex- 
plain to them the meaning of the 
crucifix and of the holy pictures 
which you have, or which you should 
have, in your house. Inspire them 
with the love of God, with the hor- 
ror of sin, with a tender devotion to 
" sweet Jesus and Mary." By the 
time they are old enough to be sent 
to school they ought to know not 
only all the ordinary prayers, but 
also the principal articles of faith 
and the obligations of a Christian. 
We shall develop this in the follow- 
ing chapters. 



CHAPTER IV. 
IReligious draining at Ibome. 

vtour principal duty as parents 
is, as we have said, to bring up 
your children in the holy love and 
fear of God. AH your other duties 
are only secondary and subordinate 
to this one, and must never be al- 
lowed to interfere with it. You 
should, then, teach your children 
to love and fear God, and not to 
love and fear the world. 

Charity is the greatest of the vir- 
tues: it is the life of the others. 
&adwe faith great enough to move 
mountains, says St. Paul ; were we 
able to speak all the languages of 
angels and of men, and were we 
even to master all sciences, and 



RELIGIOUS TRAINING AT HOME. 29 

be at the same time wanting in 
charity, in divine love, — all this 
would profit us nothing ! The love 
of God is the sum of all our duties, 
for, says St. Augustine, " love God, 
and do what you will." 

You should show to your children 
that no one is more deserving of 
our love than God, the infinitely 
good, wise, bountiful, great, and per- 
fect Being, who, without any merit 
on our part, has loved us from all 
eternity ; who for our sake did not 
spare His own beloved Son, who 
loved us so exceedingly as to die 
for us the most cruel and disgrace- 
ful of deaths; who so lovingly be- 
stows numberless favors on us every 
moment of our life ; who so merci- 
fully forgives us our sins ; who so 
generously deigns to make us His 
children, destining us forever to 



30 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

share His own unspeakable happi- 
ness and glory. 

You should teach your children, 
from their tenderest years, all the 
claims which God has to their love, 
as well as their most sacred obliga- 
tion of loving Him with their whole 
heart and soul, with all their mind 
and all their strength, and this not 
in words only, but sincerely and in 
deed. Since love is the union of 
wills, you should fully convince 
them that the true love of' God 
consists in having but one will with 
Him, in doing all that He com- 
mands, and in seeking to please 
Him in all things. 

Nothing tends more to ennoble 
and exalt rational beings, and incite 
them to the performance of noble 
and heroic deeds than divine love. 
Tell your children ..ow divine love 



RELIGIOUS TRAINING AT HOME. 31 

imparted to millions of martyrs the 
strength to endure the most excru- 
ciating torments and undergo the 
most painful death ; that it is the 
love of God which has enabled, and 
still daily enables, poor weak mor- 
tals to leave parents, home, friends, 
country, worldly goods, and bright 
prospects, and renounce the pleas- 
ures of sense, in order to lead a life 
of poverty, chastity, obedience, self- 
denial, and self-sacrifice in the ser- 
vice of the poor, the ignorant, the 
sick, the wretched, and the outcasts 
of society, and daily perform those 
heroic deeds from which even the 
most bitter enemies of the Catholic 
Church cannot withhold the tribute 
of their admiration. 

Those who have learned to love 
God above all things not only seek 
to please Him in all their actions. 



32 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

but they dread to displease Him 
above every other evil. This is the 
fear of God. Your children should 
be most intimately persuaded that 
sin, being an offence against God, 
is the only real evil, and that there- 
fore it behooves them to hate, dread, 
and shun it more than the loss of 
beauty, of health, of worldly goods, 
of liberty, of reputation, and even 
of life itself. You should indelibly 
impress it on their minds that they 
ought to avoid sin at any cost, and 
should be willing to lose all, to suf- 
fer all, to sacrifice all, rather than 
ever wilfully offend God by a single 
sin, even if that sin could procure 
the salvation of the world ! 

You should make it plain to your 
children that they can have no ex- 
cuse for committing sin — not their 
feelings or their inclinations, not 



RELIGIOUS TRAINING. AT HOME. 33 

worldly interest, not worldly custom 
or fashion, not human opinions, not 
even the avoiding of the greatest 
temporal misfortunes, for sin is the 
greatest of all evils : it is indeed 
the only real evil. 

You should not fail frequently to 
remind your children that God is 
everywhere present, that He wit- 
nesses and notes down not only 
their most secret actions, but even 
their most hidden thoughts and de- 
sires, and that He will, after their 
death, call them to a most rigorous 
account of all the thoughts, words, 
deeds, and omissions of their life. 
This will inspire them with a whole- 
some fear of the divine justice ; 
but if you have endeavored to in- 
stil divine love into their hearts, 
that fear will not be a servile fear, 
that dreads only punishment, but it 



34 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

will be a childlike fear — the fear a 
dutiful and affectionate child has 
of displeasing and offending the 
best of parents. 



CHAPTER V. 
tfceligious Urainfng at 1bome— (Continued. 

you should thoroughly educate 
your children both in the knowl- 
edge and the practice of faith. From 
their earliest infancy, as we have 
said, they should be taught the 
truths of faith, and be accustomed 
to the fulfilment of its obligations. 
The origin and destiny of mankind 
should be deeply impressed on their 
minds. As they advance in years 
their religious training should be 
more and more thorough, until they 
become competent correctly to ex- 
plain the principal doctrines of the 
Christian religion, and successfully 
to refute the ordinary and popular 
objections against them. They 



36 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

should be made aware that the true 
faith is the greatest gift that God 
can bestow on them in this life, and 
that they should prize their holy 
faith above every worldly good, and 
be ready, like the martyrs, to offer 
every sacrifice, even their own life, 
rather than deny or endanger their 
faith. But they should, above all, 
be made to live their faith, that is, 
constantly to regulate their conduct 
in accordance with its maxims, and 
conscientiously to discharge all the 
duties it imposes. In a word, you 
should spare no effort to render 
their faith a lively faith. 

Your children ought, moreover, 
to become acquainted with the con- 
stitution and government of the 
Catholic Church; with the prin- 
cipal points of her history ; with 
the immense influence she has 



RELIGIOUS TRAINING AT HOME. 37 

wielded over society, civilization, 
literature, the arts and sciences; with 
her wonderful victories over idol- 
atry, pagan corruption, powerful 
persecutors, despotism, heresies and 
errors of all kinds, and false science. 
They should have some knowledge 
of the principal saints, heroes, 
learned men, missionaries, religious 
orders, pilgrimages, and charitable 
institutions of the Catholic Church. 
For this purpose there ought to be 
a completely new series of text- 
books for our schools and other 
educational establishments, for the 
present ones are deficient in many 
of these points. Hitherto our Cath- 
olic children have been kept in com- 
parative ignorance concerning the 
glories of the Catholic Church, her 
beneficent influence over society, 
and her great, learned, noble, and 



38 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

virtuous men and women — the he- 
roes and benefactors of the human 
race. The scientific, historical, and 
literary text -books used in our 
Catholic institutions are, in not a 
few instances, reproductions of anti- 
Catholic publications, from which 
the more odious calumnies and er- 
rors have been eliminated, but 
are not yet wholly free from error 
and hostile misstatements, and 
which are mostly silent concerning 
what is most glorious to the Church 
and most dear to the Catholic 
heart. 

One of the great faults in the 
present system of educating chil- 
dren is the neglect to accustom them 
to serious thought and reflection. 
Serious matters are seldom brought 
to their notice, and when so brought 
are usually presented in so super- 



( 

RELIGIOUS TRAINING AT HOME. 39 

ficial a manner, that they make but 
a slight impression, which is soon 
cast aside as disagreeable, or even 
entirely effaced from their minds. 
We need not wonder that the young 
of both sexes, especially the girls, 
are so light-minded, so vain, so at- 
tached to trifles, so averse to work, 
to serious reading or study, so pow- 
erless to control their feelings and 
passions, so fond of dress, pleasure, 
and amusements. 

Among the many points on which 
you should lay particular stress in 
the education of your children you 
cannot too greatly insist on the 
vanity of this world and of all 
its goods and pleasures, and their 
utter inability to satisfy the hu- 
man heart and impart true happi- 
ness. 

Your children should be most in- 



40 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

timately persuaded that they are 
destined for something- far more 
noble and excellent than the enjoy- 
ment of the paltry goods and in- 
sipid pleasures of fhis life — a life so 
full of misery and bitterness, of suf- 
ferings and disappointments. All 
their thoughts and aspirations should 
be principally directed to the at- 
tainment of the heavenly goods and 
the unspeakable happiness for which 
God has created them. They ought 
to be firmly convinced that this 
world is a place of labor and trial ; 
that this life is only a preparation 
for another and better life; that it 
is wrong to attach one's heart to 
earthly goods and joys ; that it is 
their duty to use the temporal goods 
which God bestows on them only 
as means of acquiring the goods of 
eternity. You should teach them 



RELIGIOUS TRAINING AT HOME. 41 

to seek, not so much riches, beauty, 
honors, learning, and pleasure, but 
rather virtue and supernatural merit. 
Often repeat to them the words of 
our divine Saviour: "What doth it 
profit a man, if he gain the whole 
world, and suffer the loss of his 
soul?" 

But these are not the only serious 
thoughts you should urge upon the 
consideration of your children. You 
ought frequently to remind them 
that death puts an end to all earthly 
beauty, riches, honors, and pleas- 
ures ; that it does not spare any one ; 
that it may come at any moment; 
that it will most assuredly come 
sooner than they imagine, to sepa- 
rate them from everything they hold 
most dear on earth ; that it will re- 
duce their bodies to a hideous mass of 
corruption ; that the hour of death 



42 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

is the terrible moment on which 
their eternity will depend, and that 
after death they shall be required 
to give a most rigorous account of 
all the thoughts, words, and deeds 
of their whole life to the all-seeing 
and most just Judge, who forever 
rewards the good in heaven and 
punishes the wicked in hell. These 
wholesome truths, however dis- 
agreeable to the animal man, will, if 
frequently recalled to their minds, 
preserve them in the path of duty, 
for, says the Holy Ghost, "re- 
member thy last end, and thou 
shalt never sin." These serious 
considerations will serve them as 
powerful incentives to resist and 
overcome temptations, to practise 
virtue, and to lay up a treasure of 
good works for the next life. 

In the next place, you ought to 



RELIGIOUS TRAINING AT HOME. 43 

teach your children to consider 
God, not as a Being who is far away 
and does not care for them, but as 
their most loving Father, their most 
generous benefactor, and their last 
end, in whose infinite goodness they 
should place all their trust, to whom 
they, with childlike confidence, 
should daily and even hourly have 
recourse in all their wants, asking 
forgiveness for their shortcomings, 
and expecting grace and strength 
faithfully to perform their duty and 
acquire life everlasting. 

Your children should be intimately 
persuaded that they belong wholly 
to God, and are therefore bound 
in conscience to serve Him, that is, 
to labor daily in His service, to offer 
Him all their thoughts, words, and 
deeds, and cheerfully accept and 
patiently bear all the sufferings, 



44 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

crosses, and trials He may send 
them as means of atoning for their 
sins, and gaining merit for eternal 
life. They ought to be constantly 
reminded of the absolute necessity 
and unfailing efficacy of prayer as 
a means of salvation ; and nothing 
should be left undone to inspire 
them with love for this holy exer- 
cise. You cannot insist too much 
on this important subject, for, as 
St. Alphonsus clearly proves, prayer 
is the key of salvation ; those who 
pray are saved, whilst those who do 
not pray are lost. 



CHAPTER VI 

TKflbat tbe Cbilfcren sboulo be Uaugbt to 
Hvoib. 

i. QccAsioNSofSin— Since it is of 
the greatest importance that 
your children should avoid sin and 
lead a virtuous life, it is your sacred 
duty to strive to impress deeply 
on their minds the necessity of 
avoiding the occasions of sin. Just 
as you carefully guard your chil- 
dren from frequenting persons and 
places infected with contagious 
diseases, lest they contract said 
diseases and thus endanger their 
corporal life, so also you should be- 
stow even greater care to preserve 
their spiritual life by keeping them 
from all companions, from all per- 

45 



46 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

sons, from all places, from all 
amusements, and from all reading 
which may prove dangerous to their 
faith, to their purity, to their sobri- 
ety, and to their honesty. Explain 
to them that it is a sin, and often a 
grievous sin, for them to frequent 
such occasions of sin, for just as it 
is a grievous sin rashly to expose 
one's corporal life to a very great and 
probably fatal danger, so it is a sin 
even still more grievous to expose 
one's salvation unnecessarily to a 
proximate occasion of mortal sin. 
Often remind your children of these 
words of the Holy Ghost: " He that 
loveth danger shall perish therein " 
(Ecclus. iii. 27). The neglect of par- 
ents in removing their children 
from the occasions of sin, and their 
failure to impress deeply on their 
young minds the fearful dangers of 



WHAT CHILDREN SHOULD AVOID. 47 

such occasions, are the cause of the 
wicked life and the eternal ruin of 
thousands of children. 

2. Human respect leads many 
astray who would otherwise remain 
good and exemplary Christians. You 
should therefore engrave it deeply 
on the minds of your children that 
it behooves them to avoid sin and 
do their duty, no matter what oth- 
ers may do, no matter what others 
may think or say, no matter how 
much ridicule others may cast on 
them for it. Show them that there 
never is any disgrace in doing what 
is right or in being laughed at by 
worldlings for doing one's duty, but 
that the moral cowardice which 
yields to human respect by neglect- 
ing one's duty, by committing sin 
just to please others, just to escape 
ridicule, is most disgraceful. Ex- 



48 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

plain to them how unreasonable, 
how foolish, and how dangerous it 
is for them to suffer themselves to 
be guided by the opinions of those 
whose views deserve no respect, on 
account of their worldly-minded- 
ness and dissipated and even vi- 
cious life. Explain to them how 
noble he is who has the moral cour- 
age to trample human respect un- 
der foot and despise the opinions 
and the ridicule of such persons, 
and who shows himself a lover of 
duty and virtue. Remind them 
that even the wicked themselves 
cannot withhold their esteem and 
admiration from those who have 
the courage to practise virtue and 
shun every sinful act and occasion. 
Moral courage is, without doubt, 
far superior to physical courage 
and far more worthy of admiration. 






WHAT CHILDREN SHOULD AVOID. 49 

For, indeed, how noble and praise- 
worthy are those young men and 
young women who are true to the 
dictates of their conscience and 
faithful to duty in spite of the bad 
example, the ridicule, and the sneers 
of those with whom they are com- 
pelled to associate ! In this con- 
nection often repeat to your chil- 
dren these words of our divine 
Saviour: " Whosoever shall confess 
Me before men, I will also confess 
him before My Father who is in 
heaven. But whoever shall deny 
Me before men, I will also deny 
him before My Father who is in 
heaven." (Matt. x. 32, 33.) This 
means that those who have the 
moral courage to practise their re- 
ligion in spite of the opinions 
and ridicule of the evil-minded 
will be acknowledged by our divine 



50 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

Saviour as His true disciples, as de- 
serving of heavenly reward, whilst 
the moral cowards who neglect their 
duties to please men to escape be- 
ing laughed at, shall be excluded 
from heavenly bliss. 

3. Lying and Deceit. - See that 
your children shun all lying and de- 
ceit. Tell them that God is truth 
itself, whilst the devil is, as Our 
Lord calls him, " the father of lies." 
" Truth is not in him [the devil], 
... he is a liar and the father 
thereof." (John viii. 44.) The quo- 
tation of these words will render it 
easy for you to explain to your 
children that those who tell lies, 
who try to deceive others, cannot 
please God, who is truth itself, 
but greatly displease Him, since 
they perform the works of the 
devil, the father of lies. Engrave 



WHAT CHILDREN SHOULD AVOID. 5 I 

deeply on their minds from their 
tenderest infancy the necessity of 
being always truthful, of never seek- 
ing to deceive, of carefully avoid- 
ing even the smallest lies. Explain 
to them that lying is disgraceful be- 
fore both God and men, that it is 
always wrong to tell a lie, and that 
they should never tell the least lie 
under any pretext whatever, were 
they even capable of thereby saving 
their own life. If you catch them 
telling a lie or deceiving you or 
others, be sure to punish them se- 
verely for it. But all your instruc- 
tions and admonitions concerning 
this important matter will, of course, 
avail nothing if you yourselves do 
not most conscientiously avoid all 
lying and deceit, and adhere to the 
simple truth in all things and under 
all circumstances. Finally, impress 



52 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS, 

deeply on the minds of your chil- 
dren the necessity ot making a sin- 
cere confession, and the peculiar 
heinousness of lying and deceit in 
the Sacrament of Penance. 

4. Faults against Charity and Jus- 
tice. — Teach your children to avoid 
faults against charity. Clearly ex- 
plain to them how sinful it is to 
backbite one's neighbor, to exag- 
gerate his faults, to carry tales, to 
turn him or his physical and moral 
defects into ridicule, to indulge in 
excessive teasing or rough treatment, 
to engage in quarrels, to say or do 
anything to hurt the feelings of 
others. Insist on their avoiding all 
rude behavior and excessive bois- 
terousness, and on their being polite 
and civil towards everybody, and 
especially towards their elders, and 
even towards their companions. See 



WHAT CHILDREN SHOULD AVOID. 53 

that they respect the property of 
others, and severely punish what- 
ever faults they may commit in 
wantonly taking, breaking, defac- 
ing, injuring, or destroying what be- 
longs to others ; and, if they have 
done any injury to their neighbor's 
property or goods, be sure to oblige 
them to make due reparation. Teach 
your children never to appropriate 
to themselves anything either at 
home or elsewhere without due per- 
mission. 

5. Sins of the Tongue. — Do not 
fail severely to punish your chil- 
dren whenever they are guilty of 
cursing, and more especially when- 
ever they utter obscene words or 
commit obscene actions, Leave 
nothing undone to correct them of 
any bad habit which they may have 
contracted in these points. Fre- 



54 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

quently admonish them of the great 
reverence due to God's holy name 
and to all holy things, and of 
the sinfulness to wish evil to their 
neighbor. Tell them that Our Lord 
considers as done to Himself what- 
ever we do to our neighbor, and 
that those who wish evil to their 
neighbor deserve, as a just punish- 
ment, that the same evil should be- 
fall them. Inspire them with a 
disgust and horror of everything 
impure, showing them how degrad- 
ing the vice of impurity is, and how 
carefully everything leading to it 
should be shunned. You should use 
every available means to deter them 
from every word, every look, and 
every deed that may in the least of- 
fend Christian modesty, and should 
never let any fault against this vir- 
tue go unpunished. Oh! how many 



WHAT CHILDREN SHOULD AVOID. 55 

children have gone astray, have de- 
graded themselves below the level 
of the brute, and have brought dis- 
grace to their parents and their 
family, because their parents failed 
to watch over their morals and to 
punish them for trangressing the 
rules of Christian propriety and 
modesty! What answer will such 
criminally negligent parents give to 
the just Judge of mankind when 
He will demand of them a most 
strict account of the souls of their 
children ? 

6. Vanity. — It is of great impor- 
tance to the spiritual and temporal 
welfare of your children that you 
should warn them against vanity. 
Teach your daughters especially 
that a handsome face and form, 
beautiful dress, and costly jewelry 
do not add merit to any one, and 



56 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

that many girls have been ruined 
both temporally and eternally for 
indulging in vanity, since it was for 
them the occasion of falling into 
sin and disgrace. Explain to them 
that a beautiful exterior and fine 
dress often hide a heart that is 
defiled by impurity, and is an ob- 
ject of horror and disgust to God 
and His angels. Remind them that 
that face, that body of which they 
are so proud, and which they take 
such great pains to adorn, shall one 
day become the food of worms and 
a disgusting mass of corruption. 
Put them in mind that God regards 
not the perishable beauty of the 
body, but the beauty of a pure and 
virtuous soul, and that a homely 
and poorly dressed girl whose heart 
is pure is more pleasing to God than 
the handsomest and most richly 



WHAT CHILDREN SHOULD AVOID. 57 

dressed girl whose heart is worldly 
and not adorned with modesty. 
That your words may be more ef- 
fective, add practice to precept, and 
do not dress your daughters extrav- 
agantly. This point you should 
especially take to heart on two sol- 
emn occasions, viz., your daughters* 
first holy communion and their wed- 
ding. Use every means in your 
power to prepare them for both of 
these great occasions, not by indulg- 
ing their vanity and striving to have 
them outshine others by a greater 
display of rich finery, but by in- 
spiring them with the Christian dis- 
positions necessary for the worthy 
reception of these great sacra- 
ments. Adorn their souls rather 
than their bodies. It is hardly pos- 
sible that your daughters should 
have any devotion on those memo- 



5S POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

rable occasions if your whole care 
has been to adorn their corruptible 
bodies, whilst you paid little or no 
attention to the adornment of their 
souls. 

7. Idleness. — It behooves you to 
see that your children shun idle- 
ness, which is the parent of vice, or, 
as St. John Chrysostom designates 
it, the devil's pillow. Sloth is es- 
pecially dangerous in the young of 
both sexes when their passions are 
beginning to assert themselves. 
Strive never to leave them alone 
without some employment to oc- 
cupy their minds, and thus prevent 
the entrance of temptation therein. 
There is a saying that an idle per- 
son needs no devil to tempt him, 
for his passions will surely do so, 
and will do it much more danger- 
ously than the devil could tempt 



WHAT CHILDREN SHOULD AVOID. 59 

him. We learn from experience 
that the temptations arising from 
our passions are both more violent 
and more dangerous than those 
which proceed from either the world 
or the devil. It is well if your chil- 
dren are fatigued when they retire to 
rest at night, for they will then 
soon fall asleep and sleep soundly, 
and thus escape many a temptation. 
Accustom your children to rise early, 
and not to yield to sloth when they 
are summoned to rise. Teach them 
that time is precious in both a tem- 
poral and a spiritual sense ; that it 
is given to them by God principally 
as a means to save their immortal 
souls ; that time well employed will 
purchase eternal bliss in heaven for 
them, whilst the abuse or killing of 
time will endanger their salvation. 
See that your children always punc- 



60 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

tually and carefully perform their 
allotted tasks, telling them that 
what is worth doing at all is worth 
doing well. In a word, accustom 
your children to be conscientious 
in the discharge of their duties, and 
to be always usefully employed. 



CHAPTER VII. 

2>cvotions which parents sbouU> XCcacb tbcir 
Cbilfcren. 

i. j\TECESSiTV of Prayer. — There 
is nothing which it behooves 
parents to engrave more deeply in 
the hearts of their children than the 
absolute necessity of prayer for sal- 
vation. St. Alphonsus, doctor of 
the Church, says: " He who prays 
shall certainly save his soul, and he 
who does not pray shall certainly 
lose it." Hence, if you have the 
salvation of your children at heart 
you will not fail to do all in your 
power to persuade them of the ab- 
solute necessity of prayer. Say to 
them, in the words of St. Augustine: 
" Prayer is the food of the soul; as 



62 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

the body cannot live without food, 
so also the soul cannot preserve its 
spiritual life, which is divine grace, 
without prayer." Tell your chil- 
dren that Our Lord says expressly, 
" Without Me you can do nothing " 
(John xv. 5). This means that with- 
out God's grace we can do nothing 
for our salvation. But we cannot 
obtain this indispensable grace of 
God without praying for it. Ex- 
plain, moreover, to your children 
that prayer is all-powerful with God, 
for He has solemnly promised to 
hear our prayers: " Amen, amen, I 
say to you, if you ask the Father 
anything in My name, He will give 
it to you " (John xvi. 23). Remind 
your children that they can pray at 
all times and in all places, for God 
is everywhere, and is ever ready to 
listen to us when we speak to Him 



DEVOTIONS TO BE TAUGHT CHILDREN. 63 

or ask Him any favors. Tell them 
that they should always pray with 
attention, with earnestness, with 
confidence, and with perseverance; 
and that they should pray, above all, 
for all the graces which they need 
to avoid sin, to keep the divine 
commandments, and to be saved. 
Tell them also that they may pray 
even for temporal favors, under the 
condition that such favors will not 
endanger their salvation. See that 
your children pray (i) every morn- 
ing to thank God for having pre- 
served them during the night, and 
to offer to Him all the thoughts, 
words, and actions of the day; (2) 
before and after meals; and (3) at 
night, before retiring to rest. Teach 
them, moreover, how to make a 
good intention before every action, 
offering it thus to God : " All for 



64 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

Thee, O Lord, all for Thee." Im- 
press deeply on their minds the ne- 
cessity of praying at once in temp- 
tation, by repeatedly invoking the 
holy names of Jesus and Mary, for 
if they then neglect prayer, they will 
assuredly be lost. 

2. The Infant Jesus. — Your 
younger children should be ani- 
mated with a special devotion to the 
Infant Jesus. Explain to them in 
simple language that the Son of God 
became a little child for their sake, 
to teach them how to be good 
children. Relate to them how He 
was born in a stable in great pov- 
erty and destitution, beginning then 
already to suffer for the sins of man- 
kind. Tell them how He grew up 
in age, grace, and wisdom before 
God and men ; how He was obe- 
dient, patient, industrious, kind, and 



DEVOTIONS TO BE TAUGHT CHILDREN. 65 

charitable towards all, and how He 
loved prayer Do not fail to ex- 
plain to them how they can best 
imitate so great a Model. 

3. Our Saviour s Passion, — In the 
next place, inspire your children 
with a tender love for Jesus Cruci- 
fied. Read to them or make them 
read aloud out of the Gospels, es- 
pecially on Fridays and during Lent, 
the history of the Passion of Jesus 
Christ. Explain the crucifix to 
them, telling them how it teaches 
them three principal lessons. First, 
speak to them of the enormity and 
malice of mortal sin, which is so 
grievous and so offensive to God, 
that not even all men and all the 
angels combined could, by any 
amount of penance, sufficiently 
atone for a single mortal sin, and 
that the horrible and endless pains 



66 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

of hell itself are insufficient to ap- 
pease the divine justice for a single 
mortal sin, but that Jesus Christ, 
the Son of God, innocence itself, 
alone could do so, and that He did 
it by taking our sins upon Himself 
and dying on the cross after shed- 
ding all His blood. Tell them, 
secondly, that the crucifix teaches 
us the value of our soul, which is, 
indeed, worth more than the whole 
world, since Jesus Christ, who well 
knew its value, paid for it an infinite 
price, — every drop of His most pre- 
cious blood, by which He redeemed 
our souls. Showing the crucifix to 
your children, say to them: " Be- 
hold, my children, how much your 
soul is worth; do not, then, sell it to 
the devil for a trifle, for a momen- 
tary pleasure, but save it at any and 
every cost, for * what doth it profit a 



DEVOTIONS TO BE TAUGHT CHILDREN. 67 

man, if he gain the whole world, 
and suffer the loss of his soul ? ' " 
(Matt. xvi. 26). In the third place, 
say to your children that the cruci- 
fix urges them to love Jesus Christ, 
who has loved them so much as to 
die for their sake the most cruel and 
disgraceful of deaths. Say to them: 
" Children, Jesus died for you be- 
cause He loved you so much; He 
could not have done more to show 
His love for you: love Him, then, 
in return, for He desires your love; 
love Him truly by seeking to please 
Him, by avoiding sin, which so 
greatly displeases Him. Go to 
Jesus on the Cross in all your trou- 
bles and sufferings, and suffer a lit- 
tle for Him who has suffered so 
much for you. Go to Jesus on the 
Cross when you are sorely tempted, 
and beseech Him most earnestly 



68 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

not to suffer to fall into sin and be 
lost that soul of yours for which He 
has died : if you do this, Jesus will 
surely hear your prayer." 

4. The Blessed Eucharist ', the Sa- 
cred Heart y and the Holy Face. — One 
of the most necessary devotions 
with which you should inspire your 
children is the devotion towards 
the Blessed Eucharist. Teach them 
to genuflect to our dear Lord pres- 
ent in the sacrament of His love 
when they enter and leave the 
church, and to behave in His pres- 
ence with the utmost propriety and 
reverence. Send them regularly 
and punctually to holy Mass on all 
Sundays and holy-days of obliga- 
tion. Provide them with a suitable 
prayer-book, and see that they make 
use of it whenever they assist at 
Mass, and whenever they go to con- 



DEVOTIONS TO BE TAUGHT CHILDREN. 69 

fession and holy communion. If 
possible, send them to hear Mass 
every day. Inspire them 'with an 
ardent desire to receive holy com- 
munion, and leave nothing undone 
to dispose them well for the recep- 
tion of so great a sacrament, espe- 
cially when they are to receive their 
dear Lord for the first time. It is 
advisable for you to receive holy 
communion with them on this lat- 
ter happy and ever memorable oc- 
casion. Accustom them to go to 
Vespers and Benediction, and to 
salute, at least interiorly, our Lord 
Jesus Christ, whenever they pass be- 
fore a church. To the devotion to 
Jesus in the sacrament of His love 
we should join the beautiful and 
salutary devotion to the Sacred 
Heart of Jesus — to that Heart which 
has loved men so much, and which 



70 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

will bestow so great favors on all 
who honor it. Endeavor to intro- 
duce into your family the praise- 
worthy and most useful custom of 
approaching the sacraments on the 
first Friday of every month, or 
on the Sunday following, in honor 
of the Sacred Heart. Nowadays 
many insults are offered to God by 
blasphemy, by false, unjust, and 
unnecessary oaths, by cursing and 
other profanations. In atonement 
for these outrages introduce into 
your family the devotion to the Holy 
Face of our loving Redeemer. 

5. J 'he Blessed Virgin Mary. — 
St. Alphonsus justly maintains that 
a true servant of Mary cannot be 
lost. You should, therefore, con- 
sider it one of your most important 
duties to leave no means untried to 
instil into the hearts of your chil- 



DEVOTIONS TO BE TAUGHT CHILDREN. 7 1 

dren, from their very infancy, a 
deep and tender devotion to Mary, 
the Mother of Jesus. It would be 
well if, after the example of many 
pious parents, you would dedicate 
your children, even before their 
birth, or at least from their baptism, 
to this most holy of virgins, and 
thus place their innocence and pu- 
rity under her special protection. 
Teach your children to look upon 
Mary as their loving Mother, to in- 
voke her aid with all fervor and 
confidence, in all their temptations, 
in all their trials, in all their wants, 
and to prepare for her feasts by no- 
venas of prayer and good works, 
and to receive holy communion on 
all her principal feasts. Cause 
them to wear a medal and the scap- 
ulars in her honor, and daily to re- 
cite the beads. If you succeed in 



72 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

inspiring them with a true and ten- 
der devotion to this purest of vir- 
gins, to this most powerful and lov- 
ing of mothers, you will have se- 
cured the preservation of their 
purity and their eternal salvation, 
for Mary is, indeed, the Mother of 
perpetual help and of final perse- 
verance. Recommend to them also 
devotion to Mary as Our Lady of 
Sorrows, and teach them to sym- 
pathize with her in her sorrows, es- 
pecially with the grief and anguish 
which she endured at the foot of 
the cross, when she became our 
Mother by the last will of her dying 
Son, Jesus Christ. Mary, says St. 
Alphonsus, will extend her special 
protection in life and death to all 
who sympathize with her in her sor- 
rows. 

6. «S/. Joseph, — u Since every one 



DEVOTIONS TO BE TAUGHT CHILDREN. 73 

of us shall die one day," says St. 
Alphonsus, " we should all have a 
great devotion to St. Joseph, espe- 
cially that we may through his in- 
tercession obtain the grace of a 
good death." St. Teresa used to 
declare that she had never in vain 
invoked the assistance of St. Joseph 
in either temporal or spiritual wants. 
Strive then to inspire your children 
with a great devotion to St. Joseph, 
so that they may be assisted by him 
in all their temporal and spiritual 
wants, and especially that they may 
obtain through him the inestimable 
grace of a good death. 

7. The Guardian AngeL — Fre- 
quently remind your children, from 
their very infancy, that each of 
them has a guardian angel constant- 
ly near them to protect them, to ad- 
vise them, to help them to save 



74 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

their souls, and to witness all their 
actions. Inculcate on their minds 
that it is their duty to revere and 
love him, to avoid doing in his pres- 
ence what they would be ashamed 
to do before their fellow-men, to 
pray daily to him to assist and pro- 
tect them, and to have all confidence 
in him, especially in all dangers of 
both soul and body. 

8. The Patrons of Youth. — Teach 
your boys to honor, love, and imi- 
tate St. Aloysius Gonzaga and St. 
Stanislaus Kostka, those youthful 
saints and patrons of youth, and to 
pray frequently to them to guard 
and preserve them from all danger 
of losing their faith and purity. In 
like manner, endeavor to inspire 
your daughters with a great devo- 
tion to St. Agnes, that young vir- 
gin who, to preserve her faith and 



DEVOTIONS TO BE TAUGHT CHILDREN. 75 

her purity, underwent martyrdom. 
Have your daughters to place the 
priceless treasures of their faith and 
purity under her protection, and 
often to invoke her to obtain for 
them the grace to preserve both 
their faith and purity amid the 
many dangers that may beset their 
path in this life. 

9. The Souls in Purgatory. — Since 
" it is a holy and wholesome thought 
to pray for the dead, that they may 
be loosed from their sins " (2 Mach. 
xii. 46), you should endeavor to in- 
spire your children with a tender 
compassion for the suffering souls 
in purgatory. Teach them how to 
relieve these holy souls by their 
prayers, by acts of self-denial, by 
the offering up of good works, and 
especially of holy Mass and holy 
communion, by the gaining of in- 



76 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

dulgences, and by alms from their 
savings to the poor and the needy. 

10. Pious Confraternities, — Be 
sure to induce your children to join 
pious sodalities, confraternities, and 
societies, according to their age and 
means, and to keep faithfully the 
rules thereof. This is especially 
necessary for your grown-up chil- 
dren. You should leave no means 
untried to keep them out of not 
only forbidden and dangerous so- 
cieties, but even all purely worldly 
associations, where they may meet 
with companions whose worldly- 
mindedness and religious indiffer- 
ence may prove dangerous to their 
faith and their morals. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
Submission to Butborits. 

♦t^he chief defect of the modern 
system of education is that it 
is restricted to the intellect, and 
ignores all that regards the will and 
the true principles of morality. The 
modern instructor directs his efforts 
solely to the understanding and 
memory of his pupil, and, if we may 
so express it, endeavors to cram the 
pupil's mind with a multitude of 
disjointed facts, suppositions, and 
theories. The natural result of this 
is that the majority of our youth 
on leaving school or college know a 
little of everything except how to 
save their soul; even their profane 
knowledge lacks depth and consist- 



78 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

ency. No effort is made by our 
modern educators, so called, to edu- 
cate the will, which most stands in 
need of proper training, since it is 
the mistress and ruler of all the 
human faculties. 

Just as the uneducated intellect 
is liable to be the sport of every 
kind of error and absurdity, so, in 
like manner, the uneducated will 
usually becomes the sport and slave 
of the animal passions, and is liable 
to fall into the most shocking and 
degrading vices. The rule or law 
of the intellect is truth. The rule 
or law of the will is right and jus- 
tice. The intellect is right when 
its ideas, judgments, and reasoning 
accord with truth. The will is right 
when it acts according to the prin- 
ciples of right and justice. The in- 
tellect is a speculative faculty des- 



SUBMISSION TO AUTHORITY. 79 

tined to guide man in his actions by 
pointing out to him what is right 
and just. The will is a practical 
faculty that needs the light of the 
intellect as its guide. 

Just as the intellect is not free to 
think, judge, and reason as it pleases, 
but must be regulated by truth, so, 
in like manner, the will is not free 
to act as it pleases, but is subject to 
the principles of right and justice, 
or, in other words, to law and au- 
thority. Just as the intellect needs 
to be educated in order always to 
be able to conform to truth, so also 
the will needs to be educated in 
order to be able always to conform 
to what is right and lawful. Hence 
no system of education is complete 
or deserving the name unless it in- 
cludes the will as well as the intel- 
lect. In fact, the will, being a prac- 



80 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

tical faculty, stands even in greater 
need of education than the intellect, 
for, as experience proves, the will, 
when it has begun to deviate from 
the principles of right and virtue, 
soon draws the intellect into error, 
using it as a means of justifying its 
evil doings. 

The education of the will consists 
principally in training it to act in 
accordance with the principles of 
right and justice, and to submit to 
law and legitimate authority. Both 
law and authority, to be genuine, 
must come from God, for no man, 
no creature, as such, has any natural 
right or authority over other men. 
God alone, the Author of nature, 
possesses authority in His own right 
and can delegate authority to His 
creatures ; but such delegated au- 
thority is necessarily limited and 



SUBMISSION TO AUTHORITY. 8l 

dependent on the divine will. He 
who submits to lawful authority 
does not renounce his liberty or give 
up any of his rights ; for he thereby 
submits to God Himself, before 
whom man has no other liberty, no 
other rights, than a perfect submis- 
sion to His most holy and adorable 
will. He who refuses to submit to 
lawful authority abuses his liberty, 
infringes on the absolute rights of 
God, and rebels against His supreme 
authority, and is, therefore, deserv- 
ing of condign punishment. 

The great political, anti-Christian, 
and irrational heresy of our country 
is that " the people " rule, " the 
people " make laws, " the people are 
sovereign," are the source of all au- 
thority. The natural results of this 
false principle are : the weakening 
of authority, the lack of respect for 



82 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

authority, the hatred of every kind 
of restraint, the spirit of absolute 
independence and unbridled license. 
This accursed spirit has invaded the 
sacred precincts of the family, loos- 
ened the domestic ties, and threat- 
ens totally to crush all parental 
authority, and extinguish in the 
children all respect for and submis- 
sion to superiors. 

All this shows the necessity of 
educating the will, of training the 
children, from their earliest infancy, 
to revere and obey authority. You 
should, therefore, teach your chil- 
dren to hold all legitimate authority 
as sacred and binding on the con- 
science, and to regard it as morally 
wrong and sinful to resist or despise 
authority, whether it be in thought, 
word, or deed. Your children ought 
to be frequently reminded that God's 



SUBMISSION TO AUTHORITY 83 

authority is ever supreme, and that 
no earthly power or authority can 
be legitimate when it is in opposition 
to the divine law, for, as St. Peter 
remarks, " we must obey God rather 
than men." 

It behooves you to teach your 
children to respect the civil author- 
ity and to obey all just civil laws ; 
to respect and obey their teachers 
and all other superiors in all that 
pertains to their authority. You 
should explain to them that the 
highest authority on earth is the 
Church of God, for she is divinely 
commissioned to teach and lead 
mankind in the way of salvation, 
and that, in matters of faith and 
morals, her authority is supreme, and 
therefore superior to every human 
authority. Impress well on their 
minds that our Holy Father, the 



84 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

Pope, is Christ's Vicar on earth, and 
deserves all our reverence, love, and 
submission. Teach them to show 
a special reverence to the bishop of 
the diocese and to all priests, and 
particularly to their pastor. 

Children must especially be taught 
to honor their parents ; to love them 
— next to God and above all in this 
world — as the authors of their be- 
ing, their best friends and greatest 
benefactors ; to show them on all 
occasions profound respect, defer- 
ence, and esteem ; to obey them in 
all that is not opposed to the divine 
law as strictly as they should obey 
God Himself ; to be grateful to 
them, being mindful that they can 
never sufficiently repay them for 
what they owe them ; to be patient 
with them, and conceal their short- 
coinings from strangers ; always to 



SUBMISSION TO AUTHORITY. S5 

wish them well ; to speak respect- 
fully to them and of them ; to seek 
their counsel in an matters , to aid 
them in their work and assist them 
in all their wants ; to sympathize 
with them in their sorrows ; to omit 
nothing that may help them to live 
and die as good Christians ; relig- 
iously to fulfil their last will, and 
both during their life and after 
their death never to let a day pass 
without offering fervent prayers to 
God for them. 



CHAPTER IX 
purity. 

T)urity should be the Christian's 
most precious treasure. "No 
price," says the Holy Ghost, " is wor- 
thy of a continent soul" (Ecclus. 
xxvi. 20.) Purity renders man simi- 
lar to the angels ana nt to behold 
God's infinite beauty; but impurity 
degrades man to the level of the 
brute. Whatever remarkable quali- 
ties your children may otherwise 
possess, it thev be not pure and 
chaste, they are, like a costly vase 
that is broken or cracked, useless 
or even worse than useless. 

From their very infancy children 
should be taught to love and ap- 
preciate chastity as their greatest 

86 



PURITY. 37 

treasure and their most lovely and 
ennobling ornament. They should 
be often told how much God de- 
lights in pure and chaste souls, who 
alone are worthy of beholding the 
God of infinite holiness, beauty, and 
loveliness. " Blessed are the clean 
of heart, for they shall see God," 
says our divine Redeemer. They 
ought to learn to detest and abhor 
not only the vice of impurity, but 
even everything that may endanger 
the virtue of chastity. They should 
be carefully trained to have a most 
tender conscience in all that per- 
tains to holy purity in thought, 
word, and deed ; to be modest and 
pure in private as well as in public ; 
to prefer a thousand deaths rather 
than sully their purity by the least 
unchaste thought, look, word, or 
act. 



88 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

You ought to teach your children 
to keep a constant watch over their 
thoughts and affections, lest these 
lead them into danger ; to observe 
the strictest modesty of the eyes, 
never allowing them to gaze on un- 
becoming objects, or to indulge in 
dangerous reading ; never wilfully 
to listen to unchaste discourse ; to 
restrain their tongue, lest it utter 
impure words or make indecorous 
allusions ; to shun with the greatest 
horror all companions and amuse- 
ments that may prove to them a 
source of temptation ; to avoid 
carefully all that may render them 
an occasion of temptation to others ; 
to dress with the strictest propriety, 
discarding all the fashions that ac- 
cord not with the rules of the most 
rigid modesty ; and ever to behave 
with the utmost propriety and re- 



PURITY. 89 

serve in presence of persons of a 
different sex. 

You ought to impress on the 
minds of your children that they 
are carrying the inestimable treasure 
of holy purity in a most fragile vase, 
and that this angelic virtue is so 
sensitive as to be tarnished by the 
slightest wilful, immodest thought. 
They should guard against all vain 
curiosity, and not wish to see or 
hear everything that is going on. 
They will not long remain pure if 
they frequent the company of the 
light-minded and irreligious, or in- 
dulge in reading novels or love- 
stories, or do not shun the detestable 
sin of idleness, which is appropri- 
ately termed the parent of vice. 

Most religiously keep your chil- 
dren out of all occasions dangerous 
to their purity and innocence. 



go POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

Teach them to love holy purity 
above all earthly wealth and beauty, 
and to be willing to die a thousand 
times rather than ever wilfully think, 
say, do, or permit anything contrary 
to that angelic virtue, or to imperil 
it by their levity or dangerous as- 
sociations. Teach them to have 
immediate recourse to prayer when 
tempted against purity, and to in- 
voke with fervor and earnestness 
the holy names of Jesus and Mary. 
Procure for them good and pious 
books and periodicals. Induce them 
to go at least monthly to confession 
and holy communion. Inspire them 
with the most tender devotion to the 
Blessed Virgin Mary, the purest of 
virgins, and persuade them to have 
recourse with fervor and confidence 
to her powerful protection in all 
dangers and temptations. Woe to 



PURITY. 91 

you, parents, if through your world- 
liness or neglect the purity of your 
children is endangered or lost ! It 
were better that a millstone were 
hung about your necks, and that 
you were thus cast into the sea, 
than that the purity and innocence 
of your children were endangered 
or lost through your fault ! 

To inspire your children with a 
love for holy purity, and at the same 
time to secure for them the special 
protection of the most blessed Vir- 
gin Mary in time of temptation, you 
ought to accustom them to recite 
every morning and every night the 
" Hail Mary " three times in honor 
of the purity of Mary. This pious 
exercise is recommended by St Al- 
phonsus as a sure and infallible 
means of obtaining that angelic 



Q2 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

virtue. That great doctor of 4Jie 
Church maintains that he who re- 
members having sincerely invoked 
during temptation the holy names 
of Jesus and Mary, or even only the 
name of Mary, may rest assured that 
he has not yielded to the tempta- 
tion. By carefully teaching these 
pious practices to your dear chil- 
dren you will enable them to avoid 
the abominable vice of impurity, 
and to lead a chaste and virtuous 
life. 



CHAPTER X. 
TTbt Scbooling of tbc CbUoretn 

0*end your children to a good 
Catholic school, and to no other. 
Your children cannot receive a 
Christian education unless they are 
taught both theoretically and prac- 
tically all that is necessary to en- 
able them to save their immortal 
souls. You can perform this sacred 
duty only by imparting to them a 
thorough knowledge of their duties 
towards God, towards themselves, 
and towards their fellow-men, and 
at the same time by insuring their 
faithful discharge of these obliga- 
tions. Besides all the ordinary 
prayers, your children are bound to 



94 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS* 

learn the catechism thoroughly, and 
to observe the commandments of 
God and the precepts of the Church. 
Not many Catholic parents are fully 
competent to discharge this sacred 
obligation, and among the really 
competent only a few have the lei- 
sure and disposition to devote them- 
selves to this most important task ; 
hence the necessity of good Cath- 
olic schools for the requisite relig- 
ious education and training of 
Catholic children. 

Religion is a science, — a science 
very difficult to acquire, and still 
more difficult to put into practise. 
Long and constant application and 
exercise are required to learn the 
profane sciences or to master the 
various trades. Many years, and 
sometimes a whole life, must be de- 
voted to them before one can be- 



THE SCHOOLING OF THE CHILDREN. 9? 

come proficient in them. But of all 
sciences none is so difficult to ac- 
quire and practise as the science of 
religion. Religion is not only both a 
theoretical and practical science,but 
it is also supernatural. Its knowl- 
edge and practice are especially 
difficult on account of our fallen 
nature's aversion to restraint and 
its propensity to evil. Experience 
shows that usually there is greater 
difficulty in teaching children to 
learn and practise their holy relig- 
ion, than in imparting to them a 
knowledge of the profane sciences. 
From this we may infer that a longer 
time and greater pains are required 
to teach children the knowledge and 
practice of their religion than to 
teach them any other science. 

The religious training of your 
children, as we have said, should 



96 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

begin from their very infancy, be- 
cause from the time they have at- 
tained the use of their reason — 
which is about the age of seven 
years — they are bound to labor for 
their own salvation. But they are 
incompetent to do so unless they 
are already acquainted w r ith the 
principal religious mysteries and 
obligations. It is therefore very 
sinful for you to defer their religious 
education until they are old enough 
to prepare for their first holy com- 
munion. They stand in need of a 
long, practical, and thorough course 
of religious instruction to enable 
them, after they have grown up, to 
pass unharmed through the number- 
less dangers of the world, which 
abounds in heretics, unbelievers, and 
godless people. It behooves you, 



THE SCHOOLING OF THE CHILDREN. 97 

then, to begin their religious train- 
ing from their earliest infancy, when 
their minds and hearts are as im- 
pressible as wax. Let their first 
impressions be those of their faith 
and its practice. And as a child's 
first impressions are usuallyindelible, 
religion and its duties will become 
like a second nature to your chil- 
dren, so that they will never forget 
its teachings or trample its sacred 
obligations under foot. 

To accomplish this, you should, 
moreover, send your children to 
none but good Catholic schools, 
where the study of prqfane sciences 
goes hand in hand with the study 
and practice of our holy religion. 
Man is something more than mere in- 
tellect, for he has also a heart and a 
free-will. If the mind needs instruc- 



9» POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

tion, the heart and the will need it 
none the less, but rather the more. 
Profane learning, moreover, in- 
structs the mind only partially, and 
the will and heart not at all ! It 
belongs to religion to complete the 
instruction of the mind by religious 
truths, to enable the reason to guide 
the will in its actions. Hence re- 
ligion is needed to perfect the in- 
struction of the intellect and to train 
both the heart and the will. Profane 
learning, then, cannot prove really 
beneficial to your children if it is 
separated from religious training. 
The greater your children's progress 
in secular science, the more they 
need a thorough knowledge of our 
holy religion. A sad experience 
testifies that when profane learning 
greatly exceeds religious knowledge, 



THE SCHOOLING OF THE CHILDREN. 99 

it is liable to lapse into unbelief and 
even into vice. You cannot, there- 
fore, in conscience send your chil- 
dren to any but good Catholic 
schools, where such are to be had. 



CHAPTER XL 
Ube Scboolmg of tbe Cbilt>ren-«Iont'©). 

youR obligation to send your chil- 
dren to none but good Catholic 
schools becomes still more evident 
if you call to mind the sad fact that, 
outside of the Catholic Church, the 
spirit of unbelief is making great 
headway, and is accompanied by its 
natural fruits — vice and corruption. 
It is an unquestionable truth that 
" without religion there can be no 
effective moral restraint, and with- 
out adequate moral restraint moral- 
ity is impossible." 

What is it that makes an act good 
or evil in itself ? What is it that 
constitutes the essential difference 
between right and wrong, lawful and 



THE SCHOOLING OF THE CHILDREN. IOT 

unlawful, virtue and vice ? An act 
is good when it is in accordance 
with the divine law ; if contrary to 
it, it is evil. Obedience to the di- 
vine law constitutes what is right, 
lawful, and virtuous, whilst disobedi- 
ence to it constitutes what is wrong, 
unlawful, and vicious. He who ig- 
nores or rejects God and His law 
ignores or rejects all essential dif- 
ference between good and evil, be- 
tween right and wrong, between 
lawful and unlawful, between virtue 
and vice. If he admits any differ- 
ence at all between them, it is only 
an arbitrary and variable difference, 
depending on his own whims and 
caprice ! He who ignores God's 
authority and power necessarily de- 
nies all lawful authority and power, 
because, as St. Paul says, " there is 
no power but from God." He who 



102 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

discards religion, if he be consist- 
ent, acknowledges no other author- 
ity, no other law, no other obliga- 
tion, than himself, his own feelings, 
his own interest. Why, then, 
should he perform what people call 
right, and refrain from what they 
call wrong, if his own interest, his 
own feelings, his own animal pas- 
sions, prompt him to defraud his 
neighbor or his country's govern- 
ment, to murder an enemy, to vio- 
late a woman's chastity, or to com- 
mit what other men look upon as 
heinous crimes ? Only godless peo- 
ple are guilty of such crimes, be- 
cause they have no effectual re- 
straint on their evil passions. 

The fear of God and respect for 
His law are the only effectual re- 
straints on man's evil inclinations. 
No moral restraint can be effectual 



THE SCHOOLING OF THE CHILDREN. IO3 

unless it reaches man's thoughts 
and desires, for these, as Our Lord 
declares, are the source and primary 
cause of evil-doing. The thought 
always precedes the deed. But our 
thoughts and desires are wholly in- 
terior, and are therefore beyond 
the sphere and sanction of human 
laws. The only possible and effec- 
tive restraint on evil thoughts and 
desires is the fear of God, who sees 
and knows all things, who is the 
supreme and most just Judge of 
man's thoughts, words, and actions, 
and will forever reward or punish 
man according to his works. " The 
fear of the Lord," says the Royal 
Prophet, " is the beginning of wis- 
dom." This wholesome fear, as ex- 
perience testifies, is the only uni- 
versal and effectual restraint against 
all evil-doing. 



104 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

The fear of the Lord, however, 
cannot be instilled into the heart of 
man except by a good religious 
training. But in the present public- 
school system, from which religious 
instruction is carefully banished, a 
religious training is an impossibil- 
ity. It is therefore evident that 
such a system is unable to impart 
sound moral principles, or to furnish 
an effective moral restraint on one's 
evil inclinations and animal pas- 
sions. Such a system is, then, in 
itself erroneous, and, if alone fol- 
lowed, highly dangerous to the real 
welfare of the individual, of the 
family, and of society. 

"No man," says Christ, "can 
serve two masters.'' No one can 
serve God and the devil. If you 
are not on God's side, you are sid- 
ing with the devil, for you cannot 



THE SCHOOLING OF THE CHILDREN. 105 

remain neutral. " He who is not 
with Me," says our divine Redeem- 
er, " is against Me." That system 
of education, then, from which re- 
ligion and religious instruction are 
excluded is not with God, — the 
Author of religion, — but is godless, 
anti-religious, and destructive of the 
basis of morality, and the education 
it imparts is injurious to salvation, 
for " a bad tree," says Christ, " can- 
not produce good fruit." Just as 
our bodies may be killed not mere- 
ly by poison, but quite as surely by 
want of nourishment, so also our 
souls may be spiritually killed, not 
only by heretical doctrines, but 
even more surely and insidiously 
by the want of religion, that is, by 
infidelity. 

There is now a general convic- 
tion that wickedness and the lack 



106 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

of moral principles are to be found 
among all classes of society, from 
the highest to the lowest. We need 
not be astonished at this, for a large 
proportion of the present generation, 
brought up in schools from which 
all religious instruction is excluded, 
have received no religious training 
even at home, and, consequently, 
have not had the wholesome fear of 
the Lord instilled into their hearts 
from their infancy. Being destitute 
of this salutary fear, they have but 
little fear of man or respect for 
human authority and law, because 
the instructions they have received 
have made them, not good and vir- 
tuous, but smart and godless, cap- 
able of devising a thousand ways of 
escaping or defeating human jus- 
tice. One instance among many 
will sufifice to illustrate our position. 



THE SCHOOLING OF THE CHILDREN. 107 

Statistics show that, in late years, 
ten thousand persons are murdered 
annually in the United States, and 
hardly one murderer in twenty is 
punished. The general lack of con- 
science, the dishonesty and immo- 
rality of the present generation, are 
mainly attributable to the want of 
religious education and to godless 
training. The only safeguard for 
your dear little ones against this 
torrent of corruption is the god- 
fearing spirit acquired by a thorough 
religious education in a good Cath- 
olic school. 

You ought to bear in mind that 
it is not a matter of choice with 
you ; that you are not at liberty to 
send your children to any school 
you like. Wherever there are good 
Catholic schools it is your sacred 
duty to send your children to them, 



108 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

and to no other schools, unless you 
have serious reasons approved by 
the bishop of the diocese. Such is 
the decision given by our Holy 
Father the Pope to the bishops of 
the United States. And when Rome 
has spoken the case is finally set- 
tled and is no longer appealable, as 
St. Augustine declared fifteen cen- 
turies ago. This is likewise the de- 
cision of the Third Plenary Council 
of Baltimore, which prescribes, 
wherever feasible, the erection of 
Catholic schools in every parish, 
and requires Catholic parents to 
send their children to Catholic 
schools. 

The enemies of the Catholic 
Church are everywhere doing all in 
their power to wrest the control of 
education from her, and it behooves 
every true Catholic to stand by the 



THE SCHOOLING OF THE CHILDREN. IOg 

Church in this momentous question, 
on which depends the preservation 
of future generations in the true 
faith. In this vital question every 
man must choose his side ; no one 
can remain neutral. You cannot 
serve two masters. Under which 
banner will you fight ? Will it be 
under that of Christ and His 
Church ? If so, you must send your 
children to none but good Catholic 
schools, and do all in your power to 
contribute to the erection and main- 
tenance of such schools. But if, 
without reasons approved by your 
bishop, you send your children to 
non-Catholic schools, you are ac- 
tually fighting under the banner of 
the devil, and you are helping Satan 
and his imps to destroy the Church, 
your mother ! 

11 If any man," says St. Paul, 



IIO POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

" hath not care of his own, he hath 
denied the faith, and is worse than 
an unbeliever." To take proper 
care of your children, it behooves 
you to send them to none but good 
Catholic schools. Send them reg- 
ularly, for otherwise they will not 
be able to learn much. Do this at 
least for the sake of your little ones, 
who ought to be so dear to you. In 
these times our young people, in 
order to earn a living, are obliged to 
mingle with a corrupt and unbeliev- 
ing society. They ought to be well 
acquainted with their religion, not 
only to defend their faith, but also 
to secure themselves from the danger 
of losing it altogether. To resist 
the seductions and allurements of 
the world, and to withstand faith- 
fully the fierce assaults of their own 
fiery passions, they should from 



THE SCHOOLING OF THE CHILDREN. Ill 

their very infancy have grown so 
accustomed to the faithful dis- 
charge of their religious duties as 
to find these indispensable for their 
happiness. You cannot bring about 
this desirable result in your dear 
children, unless you send them to 
schools where they will get a good 
religious training. 

Some parents object to sending 
their children to Catholic schools 
under the erroneous pretext that 
their children will learn more in the 
public schools and be better fitted 
to earn a living. This is not true ; 
and, even if it were, is it not better 
for your children to be good and 
virtuous, than to have learning 
without virtue or religious prin- 
ciples? But what does experience 
testify? It testifies that the secular 
education given in Catholic institu- 



112 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

tions is not only equal, but even 
superior, to that imparted in the 
public schools. Whenever a com- 
petitive examination takes place be- 
tween pupils of various schools, the 
palm is usually carried off by the 
pupils of Catholic schools! 

Another very powerful means of 
promoting the religious education 
of your children is to adorn every 
apartment of your house with a 
crucifix or some pious pictures, and 
to procure for your own use and 
that of your children some good 
Catholic books and papers. Every 
family ought to subscribe and pay 
for at least one Catholic paper— the 
paper having the approval of the 
bishop of the diocese. 



CHAPTER XII. 
|>rufcence ana Uact. 

TT sometimes happens that good 
and virtuous parents have unruly 
and wayward children, who are a 
source not only of annoyance to 
them, but also of grief and sorrow. 
They are at a loss to account for this, 
for they know that they are not 
sparing of good example, of kind ad- 
monitions, and even of severe cor- 
rections, but nevertheless all their 
efforts to bring up their children in 
virtue and piety are unavailing. The 
principal reason why such parents 
are unsuccessful in the bringing up 
of children is because they lack the 
necessary prudence and tact. Some 
parents are too lenient altogether, 



114 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

others are too severe, and others 
again go from one excess to the 
other. Excessive leniency, on the 
one hand, by failing to place suffi- 
cient restraint on the passions of the 
children, naturally tends to make 
the children despise authority and 
have their own way in everything. 
On the other hand, excessive sever- 
ity begets hypocrites. Children 
who are restrained only by a ser- 
vile fear of punishment will seek 
and find means of deceiving their 
parents whilst appearing to be good 
and virtuous ; but so soon as they 
have outgrown this fear of their par- 
ents, or have escaped from their 
control, they will show themselves in 
their true colors, i.e., insubordinate, 
and the slaves of the basest passions. 
Prudence requires that kindness and 
firmness be so combined in the 



PRUDENCE AND TACT. 115 

bringing up of children that the 
children be induced to practise vir- 
tue through a loving, childlike fear. 
Kindness should never be separated 
from firmness, and firmness should 
always be mingled with kindness. 
Kindness without firmness is culpa- 
ble weakness, whilst firmness with- 
out kindness degenerates into harm- 
ful harshness and severity. 

Always be kind in your manner, 
even when you have to correct, re- 
prove, and punish your children. 
Show them that you have a parental 
heart, and not the hard-heartedness 
of severe masters. But never let 
your kindness lead you to fail in the 
necessary firmness. Whenever there 
is question of something that will 
endanger the health, life, or eternal 
salvation of your children, you must 
be as firm as a rock, you must be 



Il6 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

inexorable, but in all kindness and 
without harshness. Give all the nec- 
essary commands and prohibitions, 
but avoid useless ones : and when 
you have commanded or forbidden 
something, and the children have 
disobeyed, do not fail to give the 
necessary sanction to your orders 
by inflicting reasonable punishment. 
Punish them, however, without pas- 
sion, as will be shown in a separate 
chapter. To command and threaten 
punishment in case of disobedience, 
and not to inflict punishment when 
disobeyed, is a sign of weakness, and 
will lead the children to despise both 
you and your authority. 

A great help in the bringing up 
of the children is to have order in the 
house. There should be a place for 
everything, a time for everything, 
and every one should have a task 



PRUDENCE AND TACT. 1 17 

or duty assigned to him and be held 
responsible for its proper perform- 
ance. Where disorder reigns in 
a household there the spirit of 
obedience is lacking, and it is no 
wonder if the children become un- 
manageable. Prudence is necessary 
for both the establishing and the 
maintaining of order. It is prudence 
which teaches us how to govern, 
how to direct the affairs of the family, 
how to discover and use the most 
appropriate means for the attain- 
ment of an object. Prudence dic- 
tates what to allow, what to forbid; 
how to treat the children according 
to their age, to their dispositions, 
and to the circumstances in which 
they are placed. Prudence directs 
when and how to admonish and re- 
prove, when and how to punish, 
when and how to reward. Prudence 



Il8 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

enables one to make a good choice 
of amusements and companions for 
the children. Hence it behooves 
you often to repeat the prayer of 
Solomon, to obtain the prudence 
so indispensable for you in the 
proper bringing up of your children: 
"Give us, O Lord, an understand- 
ing heart to judge . . . and discern 
between good and evil " (3 Kings 
iii. 9). 

Teach your children to reflect, to 
use their reason, to be guided in all 
their actions, not by feeling or pas- 
sion, but by reason and conscience. 
Teach them always to listen to the 
voice of their conscience and to 
heed its dictates, and never to act 
in opposition thereto. Explain to 
them how, in all their actions, they 
should be impelled by a sense of 
duty, and place their duty to God 



PRUDENCE AND TACT. II9 

above everything else. Teach them 
not to be over-confident and con- 
ceited, but in all difficult and im- 
portant matters to seek the counsel 
of their elders and their betters. In 
warning them against certain dan- 
gerous friendships, teach them how 
to discern between true and false 
friendship, between real friendship 
and flattery. Explain to them that 
the aim of true friendship is to 
make the friends more virtuous, 
more perfect ; that true friendship 
consists not in sweet words and lov- 
ing protestations; that it is obliging, 
self-sacrificing, and, above all, truth- 
ful ; whilst flattery has an oily tongue 
and smooth ways, and is misleading 
and deceitful. Warn them against 
trusting any friendship, however 
polished and apparently sincere, 
which would lead them to act in 



120 POTULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO FARENTS. 

opposition to the obligations of 
duty and the dictates of their con- 
science. 

Impress deeply on the minds of 
your children that they must be the 
masters, and not the slaves, of their 
passions ; that by yielding to their 
evil inclinations they become slaves. 
Show them that they are freemen 
only when they keep their passions 
under control. Explain to them that 
it is degrading to give way to one's 
passions, because it makes one act 
contrary to one's reason, whilst to 
restrain one's evil inclinations and 
govern one's passions is in accord- 
ance with reason and conscience, 
ennobles and perfects human nature, 
and makes man almost the equal of 
the angels. You should also see 
that your children do not acquire 
bold and forward manners; be care- 



PRUDENCE AND TACT. 121 

ful to make them keep within the 
bounds of modesty. On the other 
hand, endeavor to correct any too 
great timidity or diffidence on their 
part, which might sooner or later 
expose them to become the victims 
of human respect. 

In watching over the conduct of 
your children you should not be 
excessively suspicious, for it would 
lead them to play the hypocrite. 
Whenever you may prudently do so, 
without exposing them to dangerous 
occasions of sin, show them that 
you have confidence in them by al- 
lowing them a little more freedom 
than usual, so as to discover wheth 
er they may be trusted to make a 
good use of liberty. If you find 
that they are apt to abuse such 
privileges, you should redouble your 
care and watchfulness, kindly point 



122 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

out their faults to them, and warn 
them against relapse. 

It would be well if, after the boys 
have left school, the father were to 
accompany them every month to 
the reception of the sacraments of 
Penance and the Holy Eucharist. 
The mother should do likewise 
with the girls. Such conduct on the 
part of the father and the mother 
would confirm the children in the 
practice of their faith, in leading a 
virtuous life, and at the same time 
would tend to cement more closely 
their union with their parents and 
increase their affection for them. 
Strive by your tact and prudence, by 
your earnest efforts in carrying out 
the foregoing directions, to gain so 
great an ascendency over your chil- 
dren that they may always look 
upon you as their best friends and 



PRUDENCE AND TACT. 123 

advisers. The father should have 
so brought up his son that when 
the boy has become a young man 
he may be like a loving companion 
to his father. In like manner the 
mother should have so trained her 
daughter, that when the daughter 
has become a young woman she 
should consider her mother as her 
best friend and companion, and 
should never have any secrets to 
conceal from her own beloved 
mother. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

TKRatcbfulness. 
t t is your sacred duty constantly 
and unremittingly to watch over 
your children. But you should so 
watch that they may not be aware 
of this constant vigilance on your 
part, for it would tend to make 
them hypocrites. Teach them to 
be always truthful and sincere. 
Strive always to know whither your 
children go, with whom they as- 
sociate, and what they are doing. 
Fail not to require of them a strict 
account of all these points. Woe 
to you if you are ignorant of their 
whereabouts, of their actions, of 
the company they keep, or of the 
dangers to which their innocence is 



WATCHFULNESS. 1 25 

exposed r Some children repeatedly 
play truant from school and habit- 
ually neglect hearing holy Mass on 
Sundays and festivals, and their 
parents, because they are not watch- 
ful over them, never find it out ! 

Keep your children away from 
the streets, especially at night. 
Those children over whom there 
is little or no restraint soon lose 
their innocence, become vicious, 
and will at one time or another 
disgrace their parents and break 
their hearts, for, says St. Paul, 
" every one reaps what he has 
sown." 

Accustom your children to go to 
bed early and to rise early. Keep 
them from all bad and dangerous 
companions, from all sinful and 
dangerous amusements, and from 
whatever may prove injurious to 



126 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

their purity and innocence. To in- 
spire your grown-up boys and girls 
with a love of home, do all in your 
power to make your home pleasant 
and agreeable to them. In the 
evenings join with them in their 
innocent mirth and pastimes, and 
from time to time allow them to 
invite some good and respectable 
companions to share their home 
amusements under your own eyes. 

If you constantly scold your chil- 
dren, and especially if you are al- 
ways finding fault with your older 
boys, you will thereby make home 
disagreeable to them, and in some 
manner drive them away from 
home at night in search of recrea- 
tion and pleasure in dangerous 
places and among bad compan- 
ions; hence, if your children are 
led astray and become uncontrolla- 



WATCHFULNESS. 127 

ble, the blame will rest on your- 
selves. 

Watch carefully over the reading 
of your children. Provide them 
with good Catholic books, papers, 
and periodicals, and with other 
works calculated to instruct them 
and improve their minds. Make 
your house pleasant and attractive 
by decorating it with pious pictures, 
paintings, and statues. Put up a 
neat little altar, before which you 
and your children may daily kneel 
in prayer, — and especially for night 
prayers, which should be recited by 
the whole household in common. 
Be sure to exclude from your house 
all unbecoming pictures and deco- 
rations, as well as all trashy novels 
and story-papers, and all books and 
periodicals dangerous to the faith 
and morals of your children. Let 



128 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

your house be the worthy dwelling 
of a true Catholic, capable of in- 
spiring yourselves, your children, 
and your visitors with sentiments 
of devotion and the love of virtue. 
This will be a great help to you in 
the discharge of your sacred duty 
of constantly watching over your 
children. 

Let each of your children have, 
as far as possible, a separate bed ; 
at least you must never allow those 
of different sexes to sleep promis- 
cuously together. This is a most 
important point. Carefully watch 
over the private actions of your 
children, lest they practise or con- 
tract some immoral secret habit 
which will bring on them both 
spiritual and corporal ruin. How 
often is this all-important duty neg- 
lected by even religious parents ! 



WATCHFULNESS. 1 29 

Do all in your power to bring up 
your children in perfect sobriety, 
and accustom them to control their 
appetites, and never to transgress 
the bounds of moderation in eating 
and drinking. It were even advisa- 
ble and very desirable that the par- 
ents themselves should practise, and 
cause their children also to practise, 
total abstinence, as a safeguard 
against the frequent and abomina- 
ble vice of intemperance, which is 
the cause and occasion of so much 
misery and crime. You should also 
strain every nerve to preserve your 
children from vanity, from all 
worldly spirit, from human respect, 
and from a fondness for sinful and 
dangerous amusements. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Correction. 

tt is your duty to correct your 
children whenever they do any- 
thing wrong. All children have 
their faults, and yours are no excep- 
tion to the rule. You are bound in 
conscience to correct and punish 
your children whenever they deserve 
it. You must do this from their 
very infancy, otherwise they would 
soon become unmanageable. The 
correction may consist in a simple 
sign of disapprobation ; in a word, 
a rebuke, a severe reproof ; the pri- 
vation of some delicacy, of some 
amusement, or even of a meal. 
Sometimes their temper or obstinacy 

may require even the infliction of 

i 3 o 



CORRECTION. 131 

bodily pain. It is absurd to say that 
you can always manage or control 
your little ones by talking to them 
and reasoning with them, and that 
you never need to use the rod ; your 
children are neither angels nor 
prodigies of virtue. 

The younger they are, the less apt 
are they to be influenced by mere 
reason or a sense of duty and honor. 
Just as colts need to be broken, so 
also must young children, to a cer- 
tain extent, be subdued by the 
dread of bodily pain. Some parents 
fail in their duty by constantly 
scolding, threatening, and abusing 
their children, without.; however, in- 
flicting actual punishment. Others 
very frequently beat them in anger 
amidst a volley of abuse ; and others 
again go to the other extreme, for 
they entirely neglect to reprimand 



132 FOPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

and punish them, and allow them to 
have their own way and do as they 
please. Excessive severity begets 
hypocrisy, and too great leniency 
produces license. 

You should guard against showing 
partiality or favoritism towards any 
of your children, but should correct 
them all alike when they do wrong. 
Let your correction be proportionate 
to the gravity of their fault, espe- 
cially if it proceeds from malice. 
Strive to inspire them with the 
hatred and horror of sin. Correct 
them with prudence, with firmness, 
with a loving kindness, carefully 
avoiding all display of passion, harsh- 
ness or bitterness, and all angry and 
abusive words. So correct them as 
to convince them that you punish 
them, not because you are angry, 
but because they have done wrong 



CORRECTION. 133 

and it is your painful duty to punish 
them. If you act thus, your correc- 
tion, even when most severe, will 
bind your children more closely to 
yourself. Having punished them, 
do not spoil the effect of your cor- 
rection by petting them immediately 
after. You ought, on the contrary 
to endeavor to make them sensible 
of their fault and of the displeasure 
it gave you, by being, for a time, a 
little cold and distant towards them* 
Beware of listening to their tales> 
or of taking their part against every* 
body, and especially against their 
teachers. Whenever you find out 
that they have received punishment 
in school, be sure to punish them 
for it at home also, for it is always 
to be presumed that the punishment 
inflicted at school is really deserved. 
Beware, then, of condemning and 



134 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

abusing the teacher for punishing 
your child ; and especially abstain 
from doing so in your child's hear- 
ing. Since you do not relish being 
condemned by others without a 
hearing, it is meet that you should 
refrain from condemning the teacher 
on the bare report of a faulty and, 
perhaps, untruthful and deceitful 
child. Your readiness to accept 
tales concerning the teacher or any- 
body else will encourage your chil- 
dren to manufacture them when- 
ever it may serve their purpose, and 
will tend to make them both deceit- 
ful and untrustworthy. 

In correcting the children both 
the father and the mother should 
act in concert. You ought both to 
follow the same line of conduct and 
uphold each other's authority, for 
if you do not your children will 



CORRECTION. 135 

soon become uncontrollable, and 
lose all respect for you and your 
authority. The father should al- 
ways maintain the mother's author- 
ity, and the mother should not fail 
to inspire the children with the ut- 
most respect for their father. The 
mother's simple threat " to tell 
father " about their misconduct 
should suffice to recall them at once 
to a sense of duty. 

It behooves you, moreover, not 
to fail to encourage your children 
when they do well. You should 
even, at times, reward them for their 
good conduct. It is not advisable 
to give them money for their arbi- 
trary use, except perhaps in rare 
cases and only in small sums. And 
whenever you have given them 
money, be sure cautiously to inquire 
how they have spent it. Although 



I36 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

you are strictly obliged to teach 
them how to economize and appre- 
ciate the value of the money, which 
it costs you so much to earn, you 
should, nevertheless, consider it a 
sacred duty to inspire them with 
sentiments of true Christian charity 
and the spirit of generosity towards 
the poor, the Church, and all works 
of spiritual and corporal mercy. 



CHAPTER XV. 

<Bo<to Sample. 

tt is one of your most important 
and indispensable obligations to 
give a good example to your chil- 
dren. Parents frequently complain 
of the want of obedience and sub- 
mission on the part of their chil- 
dren. They would have fewer oc- 
casions of complaint if their own 
conduct was always exemplary. 
Unfortunately, not all parents so 
conduct themselves as to inspire 
their offspring with respect, vene- 
ration, and unbounded confidence. 
Many parents even undo at home 
what has been accomplished by the 
137 



138 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

good education given in Catholic 
schools. 

How many parents are selfish, 
untruthful, dishonest, intemperate, 
and devoid of all patience, meek- 
ness, and charity ! They break the 
laws of abstinence, neglect their 
prayers, holy Mass, the hearing of 
the word of God, the reception 
of the sacraments, the reading of 
good books and Catholic papers, 
and, nevertheless, they expect their 
children to be models of virtue. 
But, says St. Paul, we can reap 
only what we have sown. 

In many cases the father is fond 
neither of his home nor of his fam- 
ily, and the mother shows neither 
respect nor submission towards the 
father. These, and sometimes far 
worse things, cause the children to 



GOOD EXAMPLE. I39 

lose all respect for their parents, 
and even to despise them. It were 
better for such parents that a mill- 
stone were hung about their necks 
and that they were thus cast into 
the deep sea, than that they should 
scandalize their little ones by break- 
ing the divine commandments and 
neglecting their religious duties. 

Example is more powerful than 
precept. It is therefore your sacred 
obligation so to conduct yourselves 
that your children may be able to 
look up to you as models both in 
the social life and in the practice of 
the Christian virtues. They should 
be able to discover in you sufficient 
grounds for believing that there is 
nobody in the world so industrious, 
so temperate, so upright, so truth- 
ful, so virtuous, and so worthy of 



140 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS, 

their respect and confidence as their 
own dear father and mother. But 
your children, who, in their child- 
hood, are more acute than they 
are supposed to be, must actually 
perceive in you good reasons for 
forming so exalted an opinion of 
you. Your conduct ought, then, to 
be such as to win and deserve their 
good opinion and esteem, and con- 
vince them that you really are their 
worthy models, their best friends, 
their most disinterested advisers, in 
whom they may place all confidence, 
to whom they may securely and ad- 
vantageously intrust all their most 
hidden secrets, and whose advice 
they may safely ask and follow. 
Strive always to act in such a man- 
ner that your children may so re- 
vere and cherish you as never to 



GOOD EXAMPLE. I4I 

undertake anything of importance 
without your consent, and to be al- 
ways ready to make any sacrifice 
rather than displease or disappoint 
you, or cause you pain. 



CHAPTER XVI. 
location. 

"jDEWARE of bringing up your chil- 
dren in indolence. Strive to 
render them competent to earn a 
decent living. Send them to school, 
but not too long ; it is not necessary 
to make every boy a first-class 
bookkeeper and every girl a school- 
teacher. In most cases it is pref- 
erable that your children learn a 
trade. 

Train them to render themselves 
useful, wherever they may be. For 
this purpose give them some occu- 
pation at home, as soon as they are 
able to be of service to you. Do 

not, however, make them work as 
142 



VOCATION. 143 

slaves. Though you may have it 
in your power to bestow such ample 
means on your daughters that they 
may not be required to earn their 
living by their own labor, you should, 
nevertheless, not only to accustom 
them to lend a helping hand in 
the daily housework, but also have 
them learn how to sew, cook, wash, 
iron, etc.; for whatever may be 
their future station in society, it 
behooves them at least perfectly to 
understand such work. 

Do not imbue your children with 
the prevalent spirit of vanity and 
ostentation, by bestowing on them 
too fine clothing, costly jewelry, or 
rich presents. Beware of educating 
them above their natural spheres in 
life, and of providing them with all 
the luxuries and accomplishments 
that are accessible only to the more 



144 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

wealthy. Endeavor, as far as cir- 
cumstances permit, to bestow a 
higher and appropriate education 
on those of your children who may 
display a remarkable talent for some 
of the liberal arts, or manifest a 
vocation for some one of the pro- 
fessions. 

As soon as your children have 
finished their schooling put them to 
work at once. It is often danger- 
ous to let them taste even for a sin- 
gle day the baneful sweets and al- 
lurements of idleness. Until they 
have attained their majority, oblige 
them strictly to bring all their earn- 
ings to their mother, who may give 
them a small weekly allowance as 
pocket-money. Nothing more sure- 
ly ruins a boy than to let him do 
what he likes with his earnings. 
When your children have attained 



VOCATION. 145 

their majority require them to con- 
tribute a monthly sum as their share 
of the family expenditures. Do all 
in your power to train them to hab- 
its of economy and sobriety. 

Whilst your children are growing 
up, carefully and closely study their 
natural dispositions and inclina- 
tions, that you may discover their 
vocation and help them to follow 
it. Bear in mind that their salva- 
tion depends on their embracing 
that state of life to which God 
calls them. You have no right to 
prescribe what state of life your 
children should embrace: that be- 
longs to God alone. " Every one," 
says St. Paul, " hath his proper gift 
from God : one after this manner, 
another after that. As the Lord 
hath distributed to every one, as the 
Lord hath called every one, sc let 



I46 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

him walk" (1 Cor. vii. 7, 17). Pray 
much that God may enlighten you 
and your children as to their voca- 
tion. Teach them often to repeat: 
" Make known to me, O Lord, the 
way in which I should walk" (Ps. 
cxlii. 8). 

If you discover in one of your 
boys the signs of a vocation to the 
priesthood, consider it as the great- 
est honor God can bestow on your 
family, and humbly thank Him for 
it, for the priestly dignity is the 
highest in the gift of God. Accord- 
ing to St. Ambrose, the priest is a 
second Christ, because he continues 
Christ's ministry and the work of 
man's redemption. 

If any of your sons and daugh- 
ters are called to the religious state 
thank God for the honor He con- 
fers on your family in choosing one 



VOCATION. I47 

of its members as His own loved 
spouse. Beware of obstinately op- 
posing or of endangering the ec- 
clesiastical or religious vocation of 
your children, for you would there- 
by greatly offend God, and expose 
yourselves to fearful punishments 
for thwarting His designs. Parents 
who succeed in preventing their 
children from consecrating them- 
selves to God's service are usually, 
sooner or later, ill-treated or dis- 
graced by those very children, or 
meet with some terrible divine pun- 
ishment, or have the grief and sor- 
row to see those children overtaken 
by some horrible fate. You should 
therefore not only not seek to hin- 
der your children from responding 
to the divine call, but you ought 
rather to do all in your power to 
help them to be faithful to it. Such 



148 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

a conduct on your part will secure 
for you and yours the choicest of 
heaven's blessings. 

The greater part of mankind > 
however, are called to the state of 
matrimony. Unfortunately, com- 
paratively few parents understand 
the full extent of their duty towards 
those of their children who are 
called to this most responsible 
state; and among those who under- 
stand it there are some who have 
not courage to perform it. Certain 
parents, and especially certain 
mothers, do not want their children 
to get married, for fear of being de- 
prived of their help ; some, out of 
prejudice or from some selfish mo- 
tive, would even rather see their 
sons plunge into vice than consent 
to their contracting an honorable 
marriage. Many others, on the 



VOCATION. 149 

other hand, through culpable negli- 
gence and indifference, allow their 
children to be wholly guided by 
their own fancy and folly in all that 
regards matrimony. Others, again, 
are bent on marrying off their chil- 
dren, and especially their daughters, 
by all means and at the earliest op- 
portunity. To catch husbands for 
their marriageable daughters they 
take them to balls, theatres, parties, 
and other more or less dangerous 
amusements, and even to some 
church more fashionable than their 
own parish church, using every 
imaginable trick and device to in- 
sure success to their plans. It does 
not seldom happen, however, that 
such mothers, whilst they are se- 
cretly congratulating themselves on 
their ingenuity and cunning, are, to- 
gether with their unhappy daugh- 



150 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

ters, made the subject of popular 
merriment, and become the laugh- 
ing-stock ot society. The afore- 
said parents are not infrequently the 
cause of their children's unhappy 
and even disgraceful marriages ! 



CHAPTER XVII. 

preparation for HDarrfage. 

iiTHEN your children are nearing 
the marriageable age it be- 
hooves you seriously to impart to 
them the necessary advice and in- 
struction concerning the dignity 
and sanctity of the Sacrament of 
Matrimony, the importance of find- 
ing out the will of God in their re- 
gard, and of making due prepara- 
tion for its worthy reception. You 
should also carefully instruct them 
concerning the very grave duties 
and responsibilities of the married 
state. Far from seeking, as some 
do, the counsel of fortune-tellers, 
you ought yourselves to pray, and 



152 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

to cause your children to pray, con- 
stantly and fervently, that they may 
discover God's holy will, and meet 
the partners He Himself may have 
destined for them. If you have ac- 
quired, as you should, perfect con- 
trol over them and gained their en- 
tire confidence, they will not under- 
take anything in so serious a matter 
without your advice. Counsel them 
in all love and kindness, and with- 
out selfishness. If your views do 
not coincide with theirs, do not 
yield to passion or prejudice, but 
be sure to give good reasons for 
your advice, otherwise it will be 
unheeded and despised. 

Watch carefully over your chil- 
dren, lest they begin to keep com- 
pany with persons whom they should 
not marry. To this class belong 
all married persons, all those who 



PREPARATION FOR MARRIAGE. 153 

are divorced, all relatives, unbeliev- 
ers, Protestants, Jews, irreligious 
persons, members of secret societies; 
as well as all who are physically or 
morally unfit to discharge properly 
the duties of the married state, 
such as those who are too young, 
too frivolous, the idle, the dissipat- 
ed, the intemperate, gamblers, and 
other worthless characters. More- 
over, an undutiful son usually 
makes a bad husband, and an un- 
dutiful daughter will be a bad wife. 
Do all you can to impress on the 
minds of your children that none 
of the aforesaid are fit to be their 
partners in life, or competent to 
help them to save their souls, or 
to bring up a family of children in 
a Christian manner. Remind them 
that no reliance is to be placed on 
the promises of such persons before 



154 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

marriage, for these promises are 
usually broken after marriage. 

Seriously warn your sons against 
private company keeping, using all 
the gentle means in your power to 
induce them to heed your advice 
on this important point. As to 
your daughters, do not allow them 
to receive the visits of young men, 
except in your own house and in 
your own presence, or at least in 
the presence of some very respect- 
able person. Too great importance 
cannot be attached to this point. 
It is very sinful for you to leave 
your daughter alone at night with a 
man, whether in your own house, 
or promenading about the streets, 
or frequenting places of amusement. 
There is always danger, and even 
great danger, though both were as 
pure as angels ; and the danger is 



PREPARATION FOR MARRIAGE. 155 

much the greater on account of their 
youth, their inexperience, and their 
growing mutual affection. Careless 
parents, when you are saying your 
night prayers, when you have retired 
to rest, where are your sons and 
daughters ? What are they doing? 
Perhaps their souls are in danger, 
and you are sleeping quietly ! Bar- 
barous and cruel parents, you would 
watch and use every precaution to 
save your house, your furniture, your 
jewelry, your money from danger, 
and yet you quietly leave your. own 
dear daughter exposed to seduc- 
tion, disgrace, and eternal perdi- 
tion, without making the slightest 
effort to protect her ! How many 
other girls more pure, more inno- 
cent, more virtuous than your 
daughter have been utterly ruined 
through the sinful and damnable 



156 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

neglect of parents like yourselves ! 
Beware lest a similar fate befall 
your own daughter ! 

You ought to follow the noble 
example of that truly Christian 
mother in Paris whose daughter 
was engaged, with her consent, to 
marry a young physician. The 
young man had never even for a 
moment seen his intended out of 
her mother's presence and hearing. 
About ten days previous to the day 
appointed for the wedding he called 
to see the young lady, saying he 
had some important private com- 
munication to make. The good 
mother kindly but firmly told him 
that he could not, under any con- 
sideration, see her daughter in pri- 
vate. " Why, madam," he said, 
" are we not soon to be married ? " 
" True/' replied the mother, " but 



PREPARATION FOR MARRIAGE. 157 

she is not yet your wife , until then 
she remains entirely under my 
charge, and I am wholly responsible 
for her , and I will never allow her 
to converse with any man in private. 
If you have anything to say to her, 
you must say it in my presence ; if 
what you have to communicate to 
her is right and proper, you cannot 
reasonably object to my hearing it." 
The young physician, who was en- 
dowed with piety and common- 
sense, then informed the lady that, 
having directed a novena of masses 
to be celebrated in the parish 
church to draw down the divine 
blessing on their marriage, he de- 
sired to apprise his intended of it, 
and request her to assist at the 
masses, and thus prepare for the 
worthy reception of the Sacrament 
of Matrimony. The mother at once 



158 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

called her daughter, who in her 
presence was made acquainted with 
all this, and acquiesced in all the ar- 
rangements. Would that all mothers 
were as prudent as this truly Chris- 
tian mother ! 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

^Carriage. 

Parents, as well as their children, 
should bear well in mind that 
company-keeping is a most serious 
matter. Do not tolerate flirtation, 
for it is a sign of extreme levity; it 
is foolish, uncharitable, and unjust, 
and will sooner or later meet with 
condign punishment. Do all in your 
power to prevent long courtships, 
because long acquaintance and fre- 
quent visits are apt to breed dan- 
gerous familiarity. Young people 
should not be permitted to keep 
company until they are prepared to 
contract an early marriage. They, 



l6o POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

after a few interviews, aided by the 
information derived from their re- 
spective parents or discreet and 
trustworthy friends, do not need a 
long time to make up their minds 
whether they want each other. If 
they do not want each other, all 
courting between them should forth- 
with cease, each of them seeking 
some other more suitable partner. 
If the young people want each 
other, let them, after consulting 
their respective confessors and par- 
ents, be at once engaged to each 
other Do not oppose their engage- 
ment unless you have solid reasons 
for so doing, and these reasons you 
should make known to your child. 
It would have been far better had 
you made those reasons known be- 
fore your child's affections were too 
deeply engaged. In case of doubt 



MARRIAGE. l6l 

as to the course you ought to pur- 
sue, it is your duty to consult your 
pastor or your confessor. 

When the young people, with your 
consent, make this engagement to 
marry each other, their marriage 
should be fixed at once at no very 
distant date ; the reason is, that 
long engagements are even nore 
dangerous than long courtships. 
Your watchfulness and solicitude 
should now redouble until the wed- 
ding has taken place. Never leave 
them alone together, either out of 
your sight or out of your hearing. 
Bear well in mind, and impress it 
well on your child's mind, that the 
parties engaged have no right to any 
familiarities whether in public or in 
private. 

Before the final arrangements tor 
the wedding are made, go with the 



l62 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

parties engaged to your pastor, that 
he may direct them how to comply 
with the laws of the Church con- 
cerning the reception of the great 
Sacrament of Matrimony. Your 
pastor will enable you to fix the 
proper date and hour of the mar- 
riage. The banns of matrimony 
should be thrice published in the 
parish church of each party. This 
publication not only renders the en- 
gagement more solemn, but also en- 
ables the impediments to the mar- 
riage, if any exist, to be discovered 
and even removed in time, and, 
moreover, will secure prayers for the 
divine blessing on the marriage. No 
true Catholic will seek, without se- 
rious reasons, dispensation from this 
important law of the Church. Its 
non-observance has been fraught 
with great evils, and has occasioned 



MARRIAGE. l63 

many unlawful, invalid, and scandal- 
ous marriages, which have proved 
the source of irreparable injury both 
in time and in eternity. 

See that your children prepare for 
marriage by a good confession. Be 
far more solicitous about the purity 
of their soul and its spiritual adorn- 
ments than about the fine and ex- 
pensive dresses they are to wear, 
etc. A few days before the mar- 
riage give your child, with all pos- 
sible gravity and modesty, the 
necessary practical instructions con- 
cerning the reciprocal duties of mar- 
ried people. Induce them to choose 
as groomsmen and bridesmaids such 
persons as will be able to receive 
holy communion with them at the 
Nuptial Mass. Do not fail to join 
them yourselves in this great act, 
offering up your holy communion to 



I64 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

obtain the divine blessing on their 
union. 

Let the young people enjoy on 
their wedding-day a little feast and 
some innocent amusement, accord- 
ing to the advice of St. Paul: " Re- 
joice in the Lord always; again I 
say, rejoice*' (Phil. iv. 4). Do not, 
however, make too great a display, 
or incur too heavy an expense. Be 
sure to banish from the feast all in- 
temperance, all obscene conversa- 
tion and remarks, and all unbecom- 
ing conduct, for all such things 
draw down God's curse instead of 
His blessing. 

After the marriage of your chil- 
dren, carefully abstain from all in- 
terference in their domestic affairs, 
unless it be necessary to come to 
their assistance, or to restore peace 
and harmony between husband and 



MARRIAGE. 165 

wife. Beware of sowing seeds of 
discord in the family. Your chil- 
dren, when married, should keep 
house for themselves, and earn their 
own living, and ought not to depend 
on you for anything except good 
advice and consolation in time of 
trouble and sickness. Treat them 
always in a friendly and loving 
manner, earnestly recommending to 
them patience, meekness, mutual 
forbearance, and the leading of a 
truly Christian life. 

Those parents who heed and put 
in practise the advice we have given 
them in these pages will not fail to 
draw down the divine blessing both 
on themselves and on their children 
in this life, and to merit an eternal 
reward in heaven. Amen. 



VARIOUS PRAYERS FOR 

THE USE OF 

PARENTS. 

PRAYER OF PARENTS FOR THEM- 
SELVES. 

/~\ God of infinite wisdom and 
goodness, vouchsafe to bestow 
on us the graces which we need for 
the faithful performance of our nu- 
merous duties towards our children. 
Grant us the necessary light to know 
these obligations, the requisite for- 
titude to discharge them with a firm- 
ness tempered with a loving kind- 
ness, and the indispensable prudence 
and tact to make use of the most 
suitable means to bring up our chil- 
dren in Thy holy fear and love, and 

1 66 



PRAYERS FOR THE USE OF PARENTS. 167 

in the observance of Thy command- 
ments. Deign, O Lord, to enable 
us also to provide plentifully for all 
their temporal wants, and so direct 
us through life that we and our 
children may one day all meet in 
heaven to praise and love Thee for 
ever and ever. O Mary, our dear- 
est Mother, deign to obtain for us 
all these graces through thy all- 
powerful intercession. Amen. 

PRAYER FOR THE YOUNG CHILDREN. 

O most holy Child Jesus, deign 
to bless and protect our little ones. 
Watch over their innocence, fill 
their young hearts with Thy holy 
love, and preserve them from every 
evil influence. Remove far from 
them all danger of soul and body, 
and grant that they may imitate the 
virtues of Thy holy childhood, and 



l68 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

grow up in age, virtue, and piety, 
so that they may afterwards be able 
to lead a truly Christian life. Rath- 
er take them out of this world in 
their innocence and purity than suf- 
fer that they should ever stray away 
from the path of Thy divine com- 
mandments. O Mary, our good and 
loving Mother, be pleased to bless 
our little children, and to be always 
a true mother to them. 

PRAYER FOR THE CHILDREN WHO 

HAVE NOT YET MADE THEIR 

FIRST COMMUNION. 

O Virgin Mary, sweet Mother and 
protectress of the young, deign to 
watch in a special manner over those 
of our children who are still too 
young to make their first holy com- 
munion, and yet are old enough to 
be liable to offend God by sin. Re- 



PRAYERS FOR THE USE OF PARENTS. 169 

move from them all evil occasions 
and all dangerous companions. Do 
not allow their innocence to suffer 
shipwreck through evil conversa- 
tions, and, if they have the misfor- 
tune of falling into sin, O deign to 
obtain for them the grace to make 
a good confession, and ever after to 
avoid sin and its occasions. Amen, 

PRAYER FOR THE CHILD WHO IS 

ABOUT TO MAKE ITS FIRST 

HOLY COMMUNION. 

Our divine Lord and Saviour Je- 
sus Christ, deign to pour forth Thy 
grace plentifully into the heart of 
our son [daughter] who is soon to 
receive Thy sacred Body and Thy 
precious Blood for the first time, and 
to grant that his [her] first holy com- 
munion may give Thee glory and be 
useful to his [her] spiritual welfare. 



170 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

Vouchsafe, O Lord, to preserve our 
dear child from the terrible misfor- 
tune and heinous crime of an un- 
worthy communion. Grant him 
[her] the grace to make a sincere 
and sorrowful confession. Inflame 
him [her] with Thy holy love and 
with an ardent desire to receive 
Thee, so that he [she] may approach 
Thee for the first time with a pure 
and loving heart, and that his [herj 
first holy communion may be to him 
[her] the pledge of eternal life. O 
dearest Mother Mary, help our son 
[daughter] to receive worthily thy 
divine Son, Jesus, not only for the 
first time, but every time he [she] 
receives holy communion. Amen. 



PRAYERS FOR THE USE OF PARENTS. 171 

PRAYER FOR THE CHILD ABOUT TO 
BE CONFIRMED. 

Deign, O Holy Ghost, to descend 
with the abundance of Thy gifts in- 
to the soul of our son [daughter], 
who is about to receive the sacra- 
ment which is to make him [her] 
a perfect Christian. So enlighten, 
strengthen, and direct his [her] soul, 
that he [she] may be until death a 
true disciple of Jesus Christ, con- 
quering the world, the devil, human 
respect, and his [her] evil inclina- 
tions. O Mary, our dearest Mother, 
deign to help our son [daughter] to 
receive the sacrament of confirma- 
tion with holy dispositions. Amen. 

PRAYER TO KNOW THE VOCATION OF 
ONE'S CHILDREN. 

O God of infinite wisdom, who 
hast from all eternity designated the 



172 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

state of life in which every man is 
to walk in order to reach heaven, do 
not suffer any of our children to 
choose a vocation other than that 
which Thou Thyself hast destined 
for them. Mercifully vouchsafe to 
enlighten us and our children, that 
we may clearly know Thy holy will 
concerning them; grant to them the 
grace faithfully to follow it, what- 
ever it may be, for Thy greater 
glory and for their and our salvation. 
O our own most loving Mother 
Mary, be pleased to assist us in dis- 
cerning and carrying out the designs 
of divine Providence over our chil- 
dren. Amen. 



PRAYERS FOR THE USE OF PARENTS. 173 

PRAYER FOR THE CHILD HAVING AN 

ECCLESIASTICAL OR A RELIGIOUS 

VOCATION. 

O God of infinite wisdom and 
bounty, we most humbly thank Thee 
for the grace and honor which Thou 
hast bestowed on our little family 
in calling to Thy service one of our 
children. It is with willing and 
grateful hearts that we offer Thee 
the sacrifice which Thou requirest 
of us. Deign to bestow abundant 
blessings, both spiritual and tem- 
poral, on us all for our cheerful com- 
pliance with Thy holy will. Grant 
that our son [daughter] may sanc- 
tify himself [herself] and persevere 
in his [her] holy vocation, and that 
we all may be reunited one day 
together in heaven to praise and 
bless Thee for ever and ever. Amen. 



174 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

O Mary, Mother of perpetual help 
and our most loving Mother, we 
place our son [daughter] under thy 
special protection ; obtain for him 
[her] the grace to become a saint 
and to lead many souls to heaven. 
Amen, 

PRAYER FOR THE SON [DAUGHTER] 
ABOUT TO BE MARRIED. 

O glorious patriarch St. Joseph, 
foster-father of Jesus Christ our 
Saviour, and chaste spouse of the 
ever Virgin Mary, model and patron 
of truly holy unions, deign to take 
under thy special protection our son 
[daughter] who is about to enter 
the responsible state of matrimony. 
Obtain for him [her] the grace to 
receive this sacrament worthily and 
out of truly Christian motives. Se- 
cure for him [her], by thy powerful 



PRAYERS FOR THE USE OF PARENTS. I75. 

intercession, all the blessings neces- 
sary to enable him [her] to discharge 
faithfully the onerous duties of that 
state, and to bear the trials insepa- 
rable from it with true Christian for- 
titude, so that he [she] may save 
his [her] soul therein. Amen. 

PRAYER FOR A WAYWARD CHILD. 

O Mary, the Mother of mercy 
and the Refuge of sinners, cast a 
look of compassion on our son 
[daughter] who has strayed away 
from the path of duty and is living 
in enmity with God. Do not allow 
him [her] to perish, but deign to ob- 
tain for him [her] the grace of a 
sincere and lasting conversion, for 
thou art the Queen of mercy and 
the Refuge of sinners, and art, more- 
over, all-powerful with thy divine 
Son, Who cannot refuse thy prayers* 



176 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

Be a compassionate mother to our 
son [daughter], and bring him [her] 
from the road of perdition to the 
way of salvation. Amen. 

PRAYER FOR A SICK CHILD. 

O most holy Virgin Mary, Mother 
of sorrows, deign to succor our son 
[daughter] who is a prey to disease 
and infirmity. If it is conformable 
to God's holy will, be pleased to 
obtain his [her] speedy and perfect 
recovery, and the grace always to 
love and serve God faithfully. But 
if health were to prove dangerous 
for his [her] salvation, obtain for 
him [her] patience and resignation in 
suffering, the grace to turn bodily 
pain into spiritual profit, and, if this 
sickness is to terminate fatally, se- 
cure for him [her] the consolation 
,of receiving the last sacraments with 



PRAYERS FOR THE USE OF PARENTS. 177 

holy dispositions, and for us the 
grace of perfect conformity with 
the divine will. Amen. 

PRAYER FOR A DECEASED CHILD 
(OVER SEVEN YEARS of age). 

Eternal rest give unto him [her], 
O Lord, and let perpetual light shine 
upon him [her]. May he [she] rest 
in peace. Amen. 

O Mary, Mother of sorrows, we 
beseech thee by the inexpressible 
grief which thou didst endure in be- 
holding thy divine Son, whom thou 
didst love with a love greater than 
any other created love, to deign to 
have pity on us and to obtain for 
us perfect resignation to the ador- 
able will of God, and for our dear 
departed one the consolation of a 
speedy release from pain and of be- 
ing soon in possession of heavenly 



178 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

bliss. May we, under thy protection, 
OMother of perpetual help, have the 
happiness of being one day reunited 
in heaven with our son [daughter], 
there to praise and love God and 
thee for all eternity. Amen. 

PRAYER IN ADVERSITY. 

O God of infinite goodness and 
bounty, who chastisest us only for 
our own welfare, to enable us to 
atone to Thy divine justice for our 
manifold and oft-repeated shortcom- 
ings, vouchsafe to succor us in our 
trials and misfortunes. May they be 
the means of detaching us from the 
world and its vain goods and fleet- 
ing pleasures, of bringing us nearer 
to Thee and of enriching us with 
merit for eternity. And, if it be 
not injurious to our spiritual wel- 
fare, deign, O Lord, to lighten and 



PRAYERS FOR THE USE OF PARENTS. I79 

sweeten our crosses and trials, and 
to bestow on us for our children's 
sake such temporal blessings as will 
not interfere with our salvation. O 
Mary, Mother of perpetual help, ob- 
tain for us perfect conformity with 
the divine will, and if it so please 
God, also a certain amount of tem- 
poral prosperity. Amen. 

DEDICATION OF THE FAMILY TO 
THE HOLY FAMILY. 

O Jesus, our most amiable Re- 
deemer, who didst condescend to 
come down from heaven, not only 
to redeem and save us, but also to 
be our model by Thy example, Thou 
didst deign to spend the greater 
part of Thy life in obscurity at Naz- 
areth, where Thou wast subject to 
Mary and Joseph, thus sanctifying 
the Christian family and becoming 



t8o POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

the model thereof. We now con- 
secrate ourselves wholly to Thee. 
Vouchsafe to accept this our conse- 
cration, and to protect us and main- 
tain us all through life in Thy holy 
fear and love, and in mutual concord 
and charity, so that we may ever be 
on earth one in heart and soul, and 
obtain eternal glory in heaven. 

O Mary, the most beloved Mother 
of Jesus Christ, and our own most 
loving Mother, deign, by thy com- 
passionate mercy and love, to obtain 
from Jesus, thy Son, a ready ac- 
ceptance of our consecration and 
all the graces we need to become a 
truly Christian family. 

O dear St. Joseph, holy and faith- 
ful protector of Jesus and Mary, 
help us, by thy powerful influence 
with them, in all our corporal and 
spiritual wants, and especially at the 



PRAYERS FOR THE USE OF PARENTS. l8l 

hour of our death, so that we may 
one day all be united in heaven 
with thee to praise and love Jesus 
and Mary for ever and ever. Amen. 

DEDICATION OF ONE'S SELF TO THE 

BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. 

(By St. Alphonsus.) 

O most holy Virgin Mary, Mother 
of God, I, , although most un- 
worthy of being thy servant, yet,, 
moved by thy wonderful compas- 
sion for poor sinners and by my 
desire to serve thee, I now choose 
thee, in presence of my guardian, 
angel and of the whole heavenly 
court, for my own Lady, Advocate,, 
and Mother ; and I firmly purpose 
always to love and serve thee for 
the future, and to do all in my 
power to induce others also to love 
and serve thee. I beseech thee, O 



382 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

Mother of God and my most com- 
passionate and loving Mother, by 
the blood which thy Son shed for 
me, to receive me among the num- 
ber of thy servants, that I may be 
forever thy loving child and devoted 
servant. Assist me in all my 
thoughts, words, and actions at 
every moment of my life, so that my 
every step and my every breath may 
be directed to the greater glory of 
God, and, with the aid of thy most 
powerful intercession, that I may 
never more offend my beloved 
Jesus, but may glorify Him and 
love Him in this life, and love thee 
also, my most beloved and dear 
Mother ; and may I thus obtain the 
grace to love thee and enjoy with 
thee the happiness of heaven for all 
.eternity. Amen. 

My own dear Mother Mary, I 



PRAYERS FOR THE USE OF PARENTS. 183 

recommend my soul to thy care 
now, and especially at the hour of 
my death. Amen. 

DEDICATION OF A FAMILY TO THE 

BLESSED VIRGIN MARY. 

(By St. Alphonsus.) 

O most blessed Virgin, immacu- 
late Queen, and our Mother Mary, 
the refuge and consolation of all 
the wretched, prostrate before thee 
with my whole family, I choose thee 
for our Lady, our Mother, and our 
advocate with God. I dedicate 
myself and all mine forever to thy 
service, and I beseech thee, O 
Mother of God, to receive us among 
the number of thy servants by tak- 
ing us all under thy protection, and 
by extending to us thy help in life, 
but more especially at the hour of 
our death. O Mother of mercy, 



184 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

I choose thee as the lady and 
ruler of my whole house, of my 
children, of all who are dear to me, 
of my interests, and of all that 
concerns me. Disdain not to take 
charge of them all and to dispose 
of them as it may please thee. 
Deign to bestow thy blessing on 
me and on my whole family, and do 
not suffer that any of us should ever 
grievously offend thy divine Son. 
Do thou defend us in temptations ; 
do thou deliver us from dangers, 
both spiritual and corporal; do thou 
provide for us in all our wants ; do 
thou counsel us in doubt and com- 
fort us in our trials ; do thou assist 
us in our infirmities and sufferings, 
but especially in the sorrows of 
death. Never allow the devil to 
glory in having in his power any of 
us who are now consecrated to thee; 



PRAYERS FOR THE USE OF PARENTS. 185 

but obtain for us by thy all-powerful 
intercession the grace that we may 
all go to heaven to thank thee, and 
together with thee to praise and 
love Jesus our Redeemer for all 
eternity. Amen. Thus may it be. 

PRAYER TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN 
TO BE RECITED BY THE PARENTS 
AND THEIR CHILDREN AT THE 
END OF NIGHT PRAYERS. 
(By St. Alphonsus.) 

Most holy immaculate Virgin 
and my Mother Mary, to thee, who 
art the Mother of my Lord, the 
Queen of the world, the advocate, 
the hope, and the refuge of sinners, 
I, who am the most miserable of all, 
render thee my most humble hom- 
age, O great Queen, and I thank 
thee for all the graces which thou 
hast conferred on me urjtil now, 



l86 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

particularly for having delivered me 
from hell, which I have so often de- 
served. I love thee, O most amiable 
Lady, and for the love which I bear 
thee I promise to serve thee always 
and to do all in my power to make 
others love thee also. I place in 
thee, next to Jesus, all my hopes ; I 
confide my salvation to thy care. 
Accept me for thy servant and re- 
ceive me under thy mantle, O 
Mother of mercy. And since thou 
art so powerful with God, deliver 
me from all temptations, or rather 
obtain for me the strength to 
triumph over them until death. Of 
thee I ask a perfect love for Jesus 
Christ. Through thee I hope to 
die a good death. O my Mother, 
by the love which thou bearest to 
God, I beseech thee to help me at 
all times, but especially at tbe last 



PRAYERS FOR THE USE OF PARENTS. 187 

moment of my life. Leave me not, 
I beseech thee, until thou seest me 
safe in heaven, blessing thee and 
singing thy mercies through all eter- 
nity. Amen. So I hope. So may 
it be. 

PRAYER TO THE BLESSED VIRGIN 

MARY TO OBTAIN A GOOD 

DEATH. 

(By St. Alphonsus.) 

O Mary, sweet refuge of sinners 
and my own loving Mother, I be- 
seech thee by the grief which thou 
didst experience in being present at 
the death of thy divine Son on the 
cross to assist me with thy mercy 
when my soul must depart from 
this world. Banish then from me 
the infernal enemies ; come then to 
take my soul and to present it as 
the soul of thy own child to the 



188 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

Eternal Judge. O my Queen, do 
not then forsake me, for it is thou 
who, after Jesus, must be my help 
at that dreadful moment on which 
my eternity depends. Beseech thy 
divine Son to grant me in His 
goodness the grace to die under thy 
protection, and to breathe forth my 
soul into His sacred wounds whilst 
repeating : Jesus and Mary, I give 
you my heart and soul. Amen. 

PRAYER TO ST. JOSEPH TO OBTAIN 

A GOOD DEATH. 

(By St. Alphonsus.) 

O great St. Joseph, my holy pro- 
tector, who hadst the inestimable 
favor of dying in the arms of Jesus 
and Mary ! Thou hadst a just 
claim to so holy a death, because 
thy whole life was holy. As for me, 
I justly deserve an unhappy death 



PRAYERS FOR THE USE OF PARENTS. l8g 

on account of my numerous sins. 
But, O dear St. Joseph, if thou dost 
protect me I shall not be lost. 
Thou hast been not only a great 
friend of Him who is to be my 
Judge, but thou hast also been His 
guardian and protector, His foster- 
father. If thou wilt recommend me 
to Jesus He will show me mercy. 
I choose thee, after Mary, for my 
principal advocate and protector. 
I promise to honor thee every day 
by some special devotion and by 
placing myself under thy care. I 
am unworthy of being thy servant ; 
but, through the love which thou 
bearest to Jesus and Mary, deign 
to accept me as thy perpetual ser- 
vant. Through the sweet company 
of Jesus and Mary, which thou didst 
enjoy during life, protect me during 
my whole life, that I may never be 



190 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

separated from God by committing 
a grievous sin. And, through the 
assistance which Jesus and Mary 
gave thee at death, deign to protect 
me at the hour of my death, that, 
dying in the company of thee, of 
Jesus and of Mary, I may go to thank 
thee in paradise, and in thy com- 
pany praise and love God for all 
eternity. Amen. 

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, I give 
you my heart and my soul. 

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, assist 
me in my last agony. 

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, may I 
breathe forth my soul with you in 
peace. 

[One hundred days' indulgence 
for each invocation.] 



PRAYERS FOR THE USE OF PARENTS, igi 

PRAYER TO OBTAIN FINAL 
PERSEVERANCE. 

(By St. Alphonsus.) 

O sovereign and eternal God, I 
thank Thee for having created me; 
for having redeemed me by means 
of the passion and death of Thy 
Son and my Lord Jesus Christ ; for 
having made me a Christian by call- 
ing me to the true faith, and for 
giving me time to repent after the 
many sins I have committed. O in- 
finite Goodness, I love Thee above 
all things, and I repent with all my 
heart of all my offences against 
Thee. I hope that Thou hast 
already pardoned me ; but I am 
still in constant danger of again 
offending Thee. For the love of 
Jesus Christ, I beseech Thee to 
grant me holy perseverance until 



192 POPULAR INSTRUCTIONS TO PARENTS. 

death. Thou knowest my weakness 
and inconstancy; help me, then, and 
permit not that I should ever again 
separate myself from Thee by relaps- 
ing into sin. Rather let me die a 
thousand times than ever again to 
lose Thy grace. O Mary, my own 
dear Mother, obtain for rne holy 
perseverance. Amen. 



APPENDIX. 

FREDERICK II., OF PRUSSIA, AND A 
CHRISTIAN SYSTEM OF EDUCA- 
TION. 

T^REDERiCK II., or the Great, King 
of Prussia in the middle of tne 
eighteenth century, was an unbe- 
liever, and the friend of Voltaire 
and other unbelievers. Neverthe- 
less he had no confidence in men 
of his class, for he frequently said 
that he would not trust himself to 
servants who had no religion, since 
he could not consider his life secure 
in their hands. He was well aware 
that a thoroughly religious training 
is necessary to make virtuous men 
and good citizens. He therefore 



194 APPENDIX. 

promulgated a school law for the 
whole kingdom of Prussia on Aug. 
12, 1763, under the title of "Gen- 
eral Landschnl-Reglement" i. e., a 
u General School Law for the Land/' 
This remarkable law remained in 
full force until the year 1872, and 
may be considered as one of the 
chief causes which raised Prussia 
so high among the great powers. 
Since its partial repeal in 1872 the 
Protestant portions of Prussia have 
been invaded by Socialism, which 
threatens sooner or later to dis- 
rupt the Prussian Empire. We will 
now give a few extracts from this 
excellent law of Frederick the Great, 
to show in what consists religious 
training in school. 

Throughout the whole of the 
aforesaid document Frederick in- 
sists on the necessity of a Christian 



APPENDIX. 195 

education. Before all else, he says, 
" the true fear of the Lord must be 
cultivated in the heart of the child. 
Other useful things,'' such as read- 
ing, writing, and arithmetic, " are to 
hold only a secondary place in the 
school." " The children are bound 
to go to school so long as they 
do not know the essentials of the 
Christian religion." After leaving 
school they shall still be obliged 
to "assist both in the church and 
in the school at the repetitions 
which the teachers and the pastors 
are to make to them on Sundays." 
There shall be daily six hours of 
school — three in the morning and 
three in the afternoon. The first 
morning hour shall be devoted to 
religious instruction. The teacher 
shall open school by making the 
pupils sing a hymn, and then shall 



196 APPENDIX. 

follow "the morning prayer, which 
shall be recited by the teacher him- 
self or by a pupil appointed by him. 
All the children shall recite de- 
voutly, in the presence of God, the 
formulas of the prayers which they 
have learned by heart. The pupils 
who come late shall remain at the 
door lest they disturb the others in 
their prayers." The prayers being 
over, the teacher shall explain a 
passage of the catechism, and shall 
show the children how they should 
put into practice the truths which 
they have learned. At the end of 
the morning session he shall again 
exhort the pupils to prayer, and 
after the prescribed prayers and the 
monthly psalm have been recited 
he shall dismiss the pupils for din- 
ner. 

The afternoon session, like that 



APPENDIX. IQ7 

of the morning, shall begin with a 
hymn and the monthly psalm. The 
first hour shall be devoted to the 
explanation of the Bible, the second 
hour to the study of the Christian 
doctrine, and the third hour to 
reading and arithmetic. On Sat- 
urdays during the first hour the 
children shall repeat the sentences, 
psalms, and hymns which they 
learned during the week ; then the 
teacher shall relate some biblical 
anecdotes, and read' to the pupils 
the epistle and gospel which the 
pastor is to explain on Sunday in 
the church during divine service. 
In fine, " he shall exhort them to 
employ the Sunday well, to be quiet 
and respectful in church, and to 
listen attentively to the Word of 
God." 

This ordinance furthermore re- 



I98 APPENDIX. 

quires that " the teacher shall strive 
to be by his whole conduct a model 
for the parish, and shall beware of 
destroying by any misconduct on 
his part the fruits of his teachings. 
He shall cultivate true piety, and 
shall carefully shun whatever might 
scandalize his pupils or their par- 
ents. He should, before all, be 
careful to acquire the science of 
God and of Christ. Thus will he 
lay the foundations of an honest 
life, and become competent to dis- 
charge all his duties as teacher; and 
he will, both by his zeal and ex- 
ample, greatly contribute to his pu- 
pils' welfare in this life, and to their 
endless happiness in the next." 

" Before opening their classes," 
continues the ordinance, "the 
teachers shall prepare themselves 
by fervent prayer, beseeching the 



appendix, igg 

Dispenser of all divine gifts and 
blessings to grant them wisdom and 
patience. Moreover, they shall pray 
the Lord to give them a paternal 
heart, in which severity is tempered 
with love. Thus they shall cheer- 
fully fulfil all the obligations incum- 
bent on Christian teachers. They 
shall bear in mind that without the 
aid of Jesus, the Friend of children, 
they can effect nothing, and cannot 
even win the hearts of their pupils. 
They shall also during class raise 
their hearts to God, that He may 
bless their zeal and grant the in- 
crease to what they sow and water, 
for in children all good is achieved 
only through the grace of God and 
the agency of His Spirit." 

" The teacher," says the ordi- 
nance in another place, " shall cause 
the children to understand that 



200 APPENDIX. 

selfishness is the source of all sin. 
He shall point out the deformity of 
sin ; he shall crush stubbornness 
and obstinacy, punish lying, insults, 
disobedience, anger, etc., as often 
as he shall be convinced that such 
faults have been committed. In 
punishing the pupils he shall care- 
fully avoid getting into a passion 
and uttering violent language ; on 
the contrary, he shall then proceed 
with quite a paternal moderation, 
shunning equally effeminate le- 
niency and excessive severity. In 
serious cases he shall not inflict 
punishment without previously con- 
sulting the pastor. On Sundays 
the teacher shall assemble the chil- 
dren and lead them to church; there 
he shall watch over them. He shall 
note the absentees, and cause all 
present at divine service to behave 



APPENDIX. 20I 

respectfully, sing piously, and listen 
attentively to the sermon, so as to 
be able to give an account of it in 
school on the following day." It 
was in this admirable manner that 
Frederick the Great intended the 
school-teacher to complete the work 
of the parents, and to help the 
clergy in the Christian education of 
the children. 

The foregoing ordinance was 
drawn up for the Protestant schools 
of Prussia. On Nov. 3, 1765, Fred- 
erick II. published a similar ordi- 
nance for the Catholic schools of 
his kingdom, with, of course, the 
necessary changes to suit the Cath- 
olics. In it he, among other things, 
speaks as follows : " We designedly 
enter into no details concerning the 
Christian doctrine which the priest 
and the teacher shall teach the chil- 



202 APPENDIX. 

dren : we refer this point to the 
directions which the Vicar-General 
of Breslau will publish." Thus the 
great Frederick, though an unbe- 
liever himself, intended that the 
statutes of the ecclesiastical au- 
thority regarding Catholic schools 
should have the force of law, and 
that the education of the children 
should, above all, be Christian in its 
very nature. Some Catholic parents 
would do well to reflect seriously 
on this. 



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